young saints
by The Goddess of Percabeth
Summary: "There is no sinner like a young saint." -Aphra Behn It's hard enough to get over the accidental death of the only person you trust. It's twice as hard when you suspect it's not an accident, but you're the only one who does. After his best friend dies in a supposed drunken hit-and-run, Yuuri takes a note out of Phichit's book and takes matters into his own hands. Victuuri.
1. Prologue

The band played off to the side some old tune everyone knows but no one can name.

Phichit and I arrived at the game twenty minutes early, him with his ever-present notebook and me with my trusty camera, the one I spent all summer mowing lawns and babysitting to afford. The stands already held around two-thirds of their total capacity, early as it was. Everyone wanted a good seat for the Homecoming game so they could capture their friends or crushes or that one freshman who was nominated as a joke with their phones as they proceeded down the center of the football field.

Excitement bubbled in the air, but also something else. Even before everything happened, it was one of those school days that didn't _feel_ like a school day. Our teachers gave up on their lesson plans. No one could focus.

The general energy of antsy anticipation translated into a boisterous student section that jeered and howled more than usual. As I took pictures of the football players and crowd, Phichit struggled to find a single member of the student body with a long enough attention span to interview. He gave up on that but venture quickly, instead choosing to talk with a few players before the game started.

I rubbed the back of my head absentmindedly. "I'll come with you." I held my camera up lamely. "We need pictures, right?"

Phichit grinned and laughed. "Because you want _pictures_."

He was right. Still, my eyes widened and darted to the field to make sure no one important could hear him. "Hey, not so loud." I stepped closer and lowered my voice. "You're not even interviewing Victor, are you? Jeez."

Phichit laughed and then so did I, because he had that sort of effect on me. Despite his uncanny habit of sticking his nose in other people's business, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone more good-hearted. I regretted acting so snippy.

"Come on." He grabbed my elbow and pulled me with him onto the sideline. "Let's go _not_ ogle the quarterback then, quick, before the game starts."

After talking to Coach Leroy about the best player to interview, we ended up with Michelle Crispino, a Senior who, judging by the amount of time he spent on the bench, was lucky he made the team at all. While Phichit asked him various questions regarding the game but only received irrelevant answers (most of which about a party he was hosting that night, and none of which usable), I photographed the team warming up and tried to avoid looking at Victor too much.

Easier said than done. My eyes soon drifted to the front row of stretching football players, and there he was, leading the stretches. I could hear his voice steadily counting. As Victor opened his legs and bent over to touch the ground, his legs and calfs clenched and accentuated the clean form of his body, thrusting his butt right into the air for all to see. A few cheerleaders checked out Victor and the guy next to him- JJ Leroy- to my left, nudging each other playfully and giggling. Then JJ's girlfriend and head cheerleader Isabella Yang walked past them on her way over to him and the girls quickly sobered.

Phichit cleared his throat, finished with Michele's interview. "Yuuri, are you almost done?" The game would start soon and we needed to vacate the sidelines.

His words broke through my trance and I nodded. "Sorry." I quickly snapped one more photo, a close-up of Victor, and left the field.

Phichit and I waited patiently on the track while the game commenced and the team ran into the field for the first time. He scribbled notes furiously in his notebook, the one that never left his side, as the band finished playing the fight song for the third time. Something about his manner- the crease in his forehead, the quick dart of his eyes back and forth and everywhere- made me suspect he wasn't just noting how fantastic the fireworks were. I wondered if he had a story, but he never revealed all the details to he until he had the whole picture. I had to wait.

By the time the clock started its countdown into first quarter, the stands had filled up almost entirely. Everyone, it seemed, was there, from drama club president Chris Giacometti to the aloof layout designer of the newspaper, Otabek Altin. Even Victor's foster brother Yurio made an appearance. Phichit and I attended most games, but I had never seen one so packed. Usually, whole sections of the stands went unsold. Not the case tonight.

This fact forced us onto the track for the whole game, but we still kept busy. In a brief moment of respite at the beginning of second quarter, Phichit sat, legs-folded across from me on the hard rubber track terf. I mirrored his position.

He sighed contently and flipped through his notebook at random. "I wish you would tell Victor how you feel. He'd probably take it better than you think."

I snorted. "That really isn't saying much." I sighed. "Plus, I don't even think he's gay. What's the point?"

Phichit shrugged and repositioned his hat. "I don't know. We're all friends. You could just, like, _ask_ him."

"If you think I'm brave enough to do that, you don't know me as well as you claim."

He knocked into my side with a shoulder. "I resent that. I know you better than your own mother."

"Again, that's really not saying much." I rubbed my arm. "Anyway, I don't know. I'm honestly still in denial he even knows my name. After years of admiring him from afar, I feel like I'm dreaming every time he says hi in the hallway." I squinted at the student section about ten yards away. "Plus, I think he has a girlfriend."

This surprised Phichit. He jerked his head up. "What makes you say that?"

I shrugged and looked down. "I dunno. He just acts strange sometimes. You know, shielding his texts from me. The other day, when he gave me a ride home, I saw an open box of condoms on his floor."

"Yuuri Katsuki, were you _snooping_?" Phichit teased. "I can't believe this. You've given in at last."

I grinned. "Yeah, well, don't get used to it. I'm desperate- and pathetic, for that matter. Just don't expect me to come with you next time you break into someone's car."

Phichit laughed, not even bothering to deny it. "Don't worry, Yuuri. Once I work for the _Times_ , I'll be so rich I'll _pay_ someone to break into people's cars."

"Of course. Speaking of the future, have you told your parents yet?"

"About the scholarship?" He nodded. "Yeah. A few days ago. My mom cried for two hours straight and my dad actually _smiled_. It was weird. But nice, I guess. Paying for college is one less thing I have to worry about now."

"I'm sure." I twiddled with my camera. A referee blew his whistle in the background. The shrill pierced through the thick summer night's air and cut through the roar from the stands. "Hey, I don't have to take pictures during halftime, do I?"

Phichit shook his head. "No. I think the _Gazette_ has that covered." He sighed. "Despite my protests."

"Good." I looked at the field, where Victor jogged tiredly to the 50 yard line, his white uniform stained green and brown from frequent tackles. "We can take a break in the field house, then."

He smiled and followed my gaze. "I see. That's okay, I guess. If you wanna see Victor that bad."

I shrugged. "Well, sure, but it's also too loud out here. A break from all his noise would be nice."

"I feel that."

A few minutes later, the team filed off the field and headed back into the locker rooms. The Homecoming court lined up around the 50 yard line as the announcer read their bios over the speaker. Phichit and I followed the team.

"I always thought Victor would run for Homecoming King," I said and Phichit shrugged. "I bet he'd-"

I froze. Ahead of me, tucked in a dark corner of the locker room, stood Victor and Isabella Yang, his hand placed gently on her arm.

Phichit jerked. "Why did you-" He noticed them. "Oh."

I inhaled sharply, my hands clenching at my sides. Victor whispered something in her ear. Isabella nodded and grabbed him into a hug, which he returned warmly. JJ led a chant with his shitty friends a few locker rows away, out of sight for his girlfriend and his teammate.

Phichit placed a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about them. It isn't worth it. Trust me," he said definitively.

I shook my head. "I told you I thought he had a girlfriend. Guess I know why he hid it from me." I tried to relax my hands. "Anyway, let's go get our stuff."

Or my stuff, since Phichit didn't carry a bag.

I trudged over to the bench holding my bag. Phichit tried to comfort me but I didn't listen so much. About five minutes before third quarter, Phichit excused himself, giving up the role of supporting friend, and told me he needed to interview the concession stand worker, Sueng-Gil Lee.

This perked my attention, even through the jealousy. "Hey, about the thefts? Is that what you're investigating?"

He shrugged. I suspected that it might have been, but I also suspected that he had a little crush on Sueng-Gil. We both had our boys, and we both used our positions in the paper to get closer to them.

They'd have been a good couple. Sueng-Gil with his stoic simplicity and Phichit with his open-hearted curiosity.

I stood up quickly, an idea forming in my mind. "Hey, before you go-"

Phichit paused.

"- if you tell him you like him in the next week, I'll tell-" My eyes traveled to the corner a few yards away, where Victor and Isabella still discussed something quietly, "you-know-who, too."

Phichit raised his eyebrows and smiled. "We'll see what happens on Monday, okay?"

I nodded. The future at that moment seemed so impending and promising.

So he scurried off, bumping into Isabella as she left Victor to talk to JJ. She scowled as their things went flying, and I took the opportunity to corner Victor.

He sat on the end of a bench, wiping the dirt and sand off of his face with a filthy towel. All it did was rearrange what was already there.

I approached him cautiously. "Hi, Victor."

He looked up and quickly composed himself. "Oh, hello Yuuri."

"Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Bad news never affects only one person, does it?"

"Yeah," I agreed like I totally understood his statement and it wasn't cryptic as hell. "Well, if you ever want to talk about anything. I'm here."

Victor picked up a nearby water bottle and took a swig. I thought maybe he didn't hear me. Then he said mildly, "Thank you, Yuuri. You're a good person. Better than most, I'd say. I hope you know that."

I wondered what brought that on. Something bothered him. I knew him well enough to know that.

My face burned. "Thanks. You are too."

My words were earnest, but they sounded insincere, a feeble attempt at returning the compliment. Victor affected me like that.

He looked like he wanted to say more, but Coach Leroy rallied his players back together.

Victor stood. "I'll see you on Monday, Yuuri." He smiled and my heart fluttered.

I think I might have wished him luck or something. But my mind ran on adrenaline both from seeing Victor with Isabella and his compliment, so I don't remember. Then he left, and I never got to find out what he was going to say.

After halftime, the game went south quickly. JJ Leroy nearly passed out fifteen seconds in, so he (and his friends, who volunteered to help him) war out of the game. His absence, combined with a distracted Victor, meant our score suffered severely. By the time the Homecoming court finished circling the track, the stands had emptied out considerably, filled now with foreign faces. I wanted to leave with them but Phichit and I still had obligations to the newspaper to stay at least until fourth quarter.

Speaking of Phichit, he had yet to make an appearance after interviewing Sueng-Gil. I thought I saw him talking to his neighbor, Minami, while I took a photo of the Homecoming Prince and Princess, but he was gone so soon after I couldn't know for sure.

Without my best friend to keep me company, I focused on the game and Victor.

Coach Leroy had him in the game constantly. I don't remember him ever getting a break, aside from halftime. He must have been exhausted by fourth quarter- he sure looked it, when we spoke. Still, he played with everything he had, always leaping and diving for the ball when it was in sight. It amazed me how collected and graceful he looked playing a sport as rough and physical as football. Hell, even his hair- so blonde it was silver- looked good when he took off his helmet, plastered with sweat against his forehead.

God, I was in deep.

"Hey, Yuuri?"

I turned around. Phichit stood behind me, not looking so good. But I was too wrapped up in Victor to notice much. "Hi, Phichit. Where have you been?"

He shrugged. "I'm getting really tired. I think I need to go."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, wringing his empty hands.

"Well, okay then. I can grab my keys-"

He shook his head. "No, it's okay, Yuuri. I can walk. It isn't that far."

I frowned, apprehensive, then sighed. "I guess not."

His house was 40 minutes away by foot. He'd get home quicker if he waited until after the game ended, and I drove him. But once Phichit made up his mind, he wouldn't budge. Maybe he wanted to be alone or something. I didn't know.

"Be safe, okay?" I told him. When he walked home from school, he crossed through a large patch of woods to reach his dimly lit and seldom traveled street.

He nodded firmly. "Of course, Yuuri." He smiled then, a smile that will haunt me for the rest of my life. "See you Monday."

I repeated the sentiment and he left. I paid no more attention to him, thought nothing of it, and resumed watching the game.

What would I have done, if I had known? Insisted I drive him home. Made him wait. Told him I loved him and appreciated everything he had done for me.

I woke up the next morning with over twenty missed calls, most of which from Phichit's parents. I quickly called them back.

Phichit's mother answered the phone sounding flustered. "Yuuri, thank goodness, you called. Phichit didn't come home last night. Is he with you?"

My heart dropped to my stomach, all breath escaping my lungs. My mind started to think of every horrific possibility. I tried to calm myself down, knowing that I was jumping to conclusions. "I haven't…" I swallowed. "I haven't seen him since last night. He left the game early to walk home."

Phichit's mother hung up, promising to keep me updated, and left me alone with my thoughts, which grew more sinister by the minute. I could hardly concentrate for the rest of the day, and frequently spammed Phichit's phone in hopes of receiving confirmation that he was okay. Predictably, I got none.

His parents filed a missing person's report later that day. This shocked me more than anything because it made it real. Phichit was really in trouble. I remember thinking that day that I would give anything to find out where he was, good news or bad news.

There are days you never look back on, inconsequential days. Nothing days. Tiny blips in the bigger picture. Then there are days that feel like nothing days, where your life changes so much in such a short amount of time. Days that you look back on and wonder how you didn't know things were about to get so, so much worse.

Be careful what you wished for, Yuuri.

The next morning, a cloudy Sunday, a neighborhood kid riding his bike down the road got more than he bargained for checking out what seemed to be a random pair of shoes, abandoned in a ditch. I'd imagine his mother was more than panicked to hear her son discovered a dead body on his paper route.

All things considered, I might have preferred finding out my best friend had died the hard way, rather than seeing it on the news like I did. At least that would have been more personal. Less like an afterthought.

Then again, I don't think I could have handled it. Seeing his lifeless body laying there, cold when he had been so vibrant, _there_ , not so long ago might have killed me, a little more than it already did.

Some driver, drunk maybe, hit him and ran while he laid there in agony for three hours, blood seeping through a gash in his head, his organs shutting down one-by-one.

That's what the coroner said, at least. I hope that- well, I don't know what I hope. But to die like he did… Phichit was probably the only person in the world who didn't deserve it. It was cruel, even for the Universe.

I lost the ability to function after that, only having the will to lay in my bed and replay his last night a thousand times in my head. I should have insisted on driving him home. I should have pulled my head out of my ass and treated him like the good friend he was instead of an afterthought. Regret nearly suffocated me for a long time.

I'm ashamed to admit that instead of seeking closure, I ignored anything that would remind me of him. I stopped showing up to newspaper club, and my camera collected dust on the corner of my desk. If my parents noticed, they didn't say anything, perhaps just happy I was picking up extra shifts at the hotel. That was the first few months after Phichit.

I suppose the universe thought it was being funny, making his life so brief yet making him suffer so long in death. But I'm not laughing.

It's January now. New year, new Yuuri. Ha. So I'm trying to move on. It's hard, especially since moving on means acceptance. I still find it too difficult to talk about him aloud, but Phichit isn't a forbidden topic in my thoughts anymore. Baby steps. It's what he would have wanted.

And so that's where I am today. Second semester, Senior year, trying to recover from an accident that didn't happen to me and should have never happened in the first place. Counting down the days until graduation, when I can leave this shitty town and everyone in it behind.

/ /

hope you enjoyed the first chapter! a bit of a slow start for the first few chapters, but things will get moving soon enough :) please leave reviews and favorites, they are very much appreciated! subscribe to find out when the next chapter is posted, or just come back next monday.

hope you enjoyed! i always love to interact with you guys! hmu on tumblr at antspaul.

see you monday!


	2. One Shoelace

_Chapter summary:_ _Yuuri rejoins the newspaper club not out of his own free will, and faces reminders of the tragic events that transpired four months earlier._

Today I do what I always do during third period physics: countdown the minutes until fourth period, when I can finally leave campus, at least for a minute. The subject itself is already unbearable, but Mr. Sharma's thick Indian accent makes matters worse. I have nothing against immigrants- my parents migrated here from Japan themselves- but deciphering his words requires a level of concentration I can't supply right now. Sleep was slow coming last night, and my eyes droop closed often.

Halfway through a lecture on centripetal acceleration ( _maybe)_ Mr. Sharma's phone rings and he pauses briefly to answer it. We all sigh in relief. I lay my head down quickly, before he finishes talking and resumes his constant survey of the class for the slightest sign of inattention. I fight back a groan when he slams the phone back down, but it's unnecessary because the call was for me.

Mr. Sharma folds his arms over his pineapple-print corduroy shirt from the 80s. "Yuuri Katsuki, go to the guidance counselor. Take your things."

I nod and wearily gather my books into my backpack. Well, thanks, Ms. Odagaki. I didn't know our newest guidance counselor even knew my name. Suspicious that a guidance counselor would be calling me down when I haven't even requested transcripts in four months, but I shouldn't complain. Anything to get me out of Physics.

I walk slower than I should to the guidance office, milking the excuse and counting each tile that I step on, before I show up at the door. It's covered in cheap blue and white paper in various shades, cut into wintery motifs like snowmen and fir trees. Ironic, since we live in Florida and the furthest North most of my peers have been is an hour up to Disney. Snow, to them, is more of an abstract concept and makes the decorations look all that more insincere. But I'm used to insincerity these days.

I cross my fingers in my hoodie's pocket that the visit is nothing more than an obligatory check-in about graduation or college plans. But I know that's not the case.

I knock gently on the snowman's hat. Ms. Odagaki softly tells me to enter and I do, taking a seat in a low and uncomfortable chair, taken right out of my third-grade teacher's "fun" corner. The room is darker, the only sources of light a yellow salt lamp behind her and the glow from her computer screen. My backpack slides of my shoulders and hits the floor with a third as I wait for her to begin.

She's all smiles. "Good afternoon, Yuuri. How are you doing today?"

I shrug and my eyes start to adjust to the low light. "I'm fine I guess."

She nods firmly and folds her hands neatly on the desk in front of her. "Good! Good." She pauses. "And how have you been since… everything?"

There it is. Ms. Odagaki is just another in a long line of teachers with hero complexes and concern above their paygrade to "save me" from myself. Losing my best friend hurt. It didn't make me an invalid. Even if I _was_ going to open up about it, it wouldn't be in front of a school guidance counselor I just met thirty seconds ago.

I frown and shrug again. "I'm fine. I don't really want to talk about it, if you don't mind."

Her lips and eyebrows squeeze together, giving her the appearance of someone much older than she is. "Of course." She clears her throat and shuffles around the papers on her desk. I don't know how she can even see. "The reason I ask is because the activities coordinator- ah! Here it is!- tells me you haven't been participating in any enrichments during free period."

Curse you, Mr. Morooka. But I stand my ground. "I'm not required to do anything during free period. Seniors can leave if they want to."

She squirms and purses her lips. "Well… we're just concerned."

I try not to roll my eyes.

"Before everything happened, you used to be so involved asking campus. This is out of character for you."

She doesn't know me. I lean back in the chair and stare at a point right above her head. "It really isn't."

"I'd really like to see you join a club, if just to buffer your college applications," she continues, like I never spoke, voice growing more desperate and shaky. "You used to take pictures for the newspaper, right? How about that?"

A spark of pity flashes across my chest as I remember that Ms. Odagaki is a recent hire, right out of college, and the first high school she's working at is _ours_. I'm sure she has enough crap to deal with without my attitude.

I sigh, my resolve crumbling at my feet. I concede. "I guess."

She brightens. "I'm glad to hear that! Why don't- why don't you go talk to Ms. Okukawa now? Her office is in the Media Center."

I know her office is in the Media Center, because as Ms. Odagaki just said, I took pictures for the school newspaper for literally three years. But I just nod, gather my things, and thank her, even though I'm sure this visit was worthless.

Predictably, I find Minako in the library, hunched over the deserted service desk with her face in a magazine- _Cosmo_. One of her favorites, I know, but not one our library carries.

Our library isn't what you'd call _up to date._ Modern literature, modern technology, and modern _people_ judging by the dust on the couches all remain scarce in the media center here, which I think bothers Minako more than anyone else. She occupies herself by handling tardies and absences, and legitimately enjoys calling parents to persecute skippers (although it doesn't seem to bother her when _I_ skip, but like I said- to her it's just something to do), and apparently reading trashy magazines.

I clear my throat as I walk over and she looks up, surprised to see me. "Any cool new crash diets to try out?"

She closes _Cosmo_ and smiles. "Yuuri, just the man I wanted to see. How can I help you? Need to pay a fine?"

I shake my head. "No, actually… I was hoping I could join the newspaper club again. Ms. Odagaki wants me to get involved, she said."

She rolls her eyes. "No kidding. That meddling bitch thinks she can save the world, one child at a time." She takes a swig of coffee. "Wait 'til public school runs its course on her. That'll squash any hope she still has out of her. Anyway, of course you have my permission, Yuuri. Yuuko's editor in chief now, so you'll have to take it up with her, but I doubt you'll run into any problems."

I smile tightly. It's been months since I've talked to Minako, and it feels nice. Normal. I've known her for almost my whole life, at least as long as I've known Yuuko. "Thanks, Minako."

She grins. "Think you can stick around?"

"Please."

"What are you trying to skip?"

"Physics. Mr. Sharma."

She winces. "That's rough, kid. Pull up a chair, and we'll talk."

I drag a stool from the nearby teacher workroom and place it next to her. She tucks the magazine into a drawer, pulling out a manilla folder instead. "How's your mom?"

"Good. What's that?" I ask.

She clears her throat. "I have to warn you, Yuuri, things aren't looking so bright for the _Dispatch_. At the rate we're making money now, it won't last beyond a few more issues." She slides the folder towards me. "Here's the financial statements for the last few months."

I open the folder and take a look. As Minako said, the future looks bleak for _the Dorsal Dispatch._ Before, when I was officially part of the newspaper, I never did the books- that job usually fell to Phichit, even if we had a treasurer, because he wanted it to be done exactly right. Phichit always had an eye for detail like that. He cared about the _Dispatch_ like a parent would a child, which made sense since it owed any success it had to him; be essentially built it from the ground up freshman and sophomore year. By last September, he had accumulated a significant clientele for ad space and readership alike, and the club bank account was healthier than it had ever been. But according to the documents before me, the account barely contains $150. I don't remember how much an issue cost to print, but that won't last for long.

"Wow." I pushed my glasses up and exhaled sharply, looking closer at the statement. "Where's all the money? Not that long ago Ph- it had almost two grand."

Minako smiled sadly and sighed. "After, well, everything, the kids were kind of lost. We lost a lot of the companies who were willing to advertise because no one knew how to approach them or even who to approach. We've been putting out a few issues here and there, but it's been slow going. They just don't have inspiration anymore."

I know how that feels. I immediately balk. "This is my fault. I should have just stayed with the club, then-"

She silences me by putting a calm hand on my shoulder. "Hey, don't say that," she says sternly. "I know you've heard it a thousand times, but it wasn't your fault, everything that happened." She straightens. "And who knows? You coming back might be the spark the rest of the kids need to revive the paper."

My shoulders hunch around my neck. After everything he worked for, I couldn't even honor Phichit's life by making sure the _Dispatch_ stayed up and running. Another of many failures. "Still, I-"

"Yuuri, stop it. You're coming back, aren't you? So just do what you can now. The past is the past."

I nod and try to take her advice. "Okay."

She smiles back and squeezes my shoulder. "Good." Then she clears her throat and leans back in her chair, like she does when she's about to spill some gossip she overheard in the teacher workroom. "You know that kid Chris? The theater club president, total asshole? Anyway, the band director thinks he's been using one of the bathrooms to have private rendezvous during free period and after school."

"The ones near the main office?"

She nods.

I wince. "That's repulsive."

"Right?!"

"I've never used that bathroom, but I sure as hell won't now."

She howls with laughter. I feel better, a little more at ease with everything. I've known Minako for years; she went to school with my mother and she's more of an aunt or friend than teacher.

A few more minutes of mindless chatter and gossip later, the bell rings and it's time for free period. I thank her and head downstairs to the media lab for the club.

Twenty-five years ago, back when Minako and my mom were in high school, I'm sure the media lab was nice and up-to-date. But that's probably the last time it was nice, or clean for that matter. Or used before Phichit and I moved all of the old dinosaur box computers out of the room freshman year, where they had accumulated in the makeshift storage room. Water stains color the ceiling tiles a sick yellow, and dust covers the carpet. We used to try and vacuum and dust once a week, but it looks like that practice fell by the wayside in my absence.

I'm the first to arrive, so I spot in a seat in a random faded grey office chair near the whiteboard, covered in old notes from previous meetings: _New front office photo display, fundraising, memorial for Phichit?_ I stand up to erase this last bit. In order to get the ink off the board, I really have to put some force behind my fist. When I return to my chair, I notice a suspicious stain on the seat of it. By the time I throw a towel over it and sit back down, the door's opening. Yuuko walks in, Takeshi on her tail.

Yuuko stops right in her tracks. She's surprised to see me, to say the least. "Yuuri! What are you doing here?"

I shrug, trying to appear nonchalant, like I didn't totally avoid newspaper club for the last three months. "Newspaper club still meets here, right?"

Her eyebrows scrunch together. "Well, yeah, of course. But I thought-" she stops and brightens. "So does this mean you're joining back up?"

I nod and she lunges across the room to hug me, squealing. "Oh, that's so exciting!"

My attempts to wriggle out of her grasp are in vain. "As long as it's okay with you."

She nods vigorously and squeezes tighter. "Shut up, _duh_ you can join back! This is _your_ club more than it's mine."

I struggle to breathe until a strong force frees me from her grasp.

"I think that's enough for today, Yuuko," Takeshi says, pulling his girlfriend away from me. Good old Takeshi, once my childhood bully and now protector of sorts, as well as the undefeated captain of the weightlifting team. "Let the kid dream."

He also thinks it's funny to call me "kid". I'm twelve days older than him, but he's always been stronger and taller than me.

A light heat fills my cheeks. "Thanks, Takeshi."

He shrugs and throws an arm around Yuuko's shoulders as they sit in a few folding chairs down from me. A few more people filter in as the minutes go by, most I recognize: Minami Kenjirou, the sophomore who runs the infamously ridiculous advice column; the underachiever Georgi Popovich, who I tolerate because he's Victor's foster brother; Otabek Altin, the varsity soccer player whose presence in the club mystifies me since he could do way better than the _Dispatch_ \- that, and the fact that Phichit kind of sent his brother to prison last year; and Anya Medvedeva, Georgi's on-again, off-again girlfriend who's less trustworthy than her boyfriend. Quite the motley crew, I will admit. But a few months ago I would've called these people my family. A lot has changed.

They all seem surprised to see me (with the exception of Anya. I think she's high), but no one says anything besides Minami, who squeals a little bit. I try to smile at him but I'm afraid it comes off as more of a grimace.

When everyone is accounted for, Yuuko starts. The meeting is significantly less organized than I remember, but I try not to judge. She's doing her best. After going over the minutes from their last meeting, Yuuko reviews the article assignments. I mostly tune her out, sitting quietly to myself, until she wraps up.

Yuuko flips through a few pages of her notebook. "I think that's about it, guys." She slaps it down on the desk behind her. "Anyone have anything to add? Yuuri?"

My head perks up, and I'm about to tell her no. Then I reconsider. "Actually, yeah. Minako mentioned something about the bank account running low."

Everyone fidgets at this. Yuuko sighs. After a moment, she says slowly, "I had hoped we could talk about this later, but that wouldn't be right. The truth is we're not doing great, Yuuri."

"Yeah, Minako told me that you'll only be around for a few weeks more at this rate." I shrug. "So are you going to do anything about it?" 

Yuuko raises her eyebrows. "Well… I don't know." She looks around at the others for help, but received none. "It's been hard these last few months. The paper just doesn't have the readership it used to, so we lost a lot of advertisers."

I nod. It's nothing I don't know.

Minami raises his hand meekly. "We could have a fundraiser, or something. Maybe if we had a little more money, we could spend it on something that would garner more readers."

"That's a good start, Minami," I say, rising from my seat. I glance at Yuuko, and she nods in concession. Picking up a marker, I write down the jist of what Minami said. "Does anyone have anything to add to Minami's idea?"

No one responds. "Anyone?" I ask.

Anya clears her throat. I turn to her, slightly astonished that she's speaking. "Anya?"

"Bake sale. Except we put weed in all of the brownies and shit so they'll actually sell."

Right. Never let me down, Anya. Someone sniggers- Georgi, I think. Otabek just looks annoyed.

Takeshi quips, "You mean _baked_ sale."

I roll my eyes and sigh.

Yuuko hushes them. "Any _real_ ideas, guys?"

Again, no one responds. I try to eke them on. "Well, maybe we could sleep on it, and think of ideas for what we could do to gain back our readership."

Yuuko nods and stands. "That's good, Yuuri. So everyone, when we meet on Wednesday, bring two ideas for a feature. Something attention-grabbing that would bring readers in."

She dismisses everybody else, but I stick around to talk to her. It's just me and Yuuko- even Takeshi left for the gym. It's like elementary school again, before I met Phichit, when Yuuko was the chubby, shy, awkward kid's only friend. I used to have what I thought was a crush on her, but I now realize it was just tremendous affection and endearment for the one person who would talk to me.

I cough. "Hey, Yuuko."

She turns to me and smiles. "Yuuri, thanks for coming. Hope I didn't intrude on anything."

I shrug and lean against a desk close to where she stands. "I was actually coming over to say the same thing."

Laughing, she hops on the desk and starts swinging her legs. "Well, good. But it _is_ your club, even if you haven't been to a meeting in a while. I'm honestly feeling a little lost. You and Phichit always knew exactly what-" she notices my fallen face and recoils. "Hey, sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned him."

I shake my head. "No, it's okay. It's hard to hear about it."

She's quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, it's with a low, hesitant voice. "Mari told me you still haven't talked about it." I open my mouth to speak but she just continues, "I'm not going to say anymore, don't worry, just know that if you ever want to talk about it- I'm here. Okay?"

I nod and sigh. "Thanks, Yuuko. But I'm trying to move on. Really. No offense, but I didn't come back to the club to relive my past. I came back because Ms. Odagaki said I needed more extracurriculars for college."

Hurt flashes across her face, and I feel guilty for a moment. I probably overshared, but spoke nothing but the truth. I don't want to mislead my oldest friend in any way.

I clear my throat and pick up my bags. "Sorry, Yuuko. And thanks again for letting me back in the club. Don't worry about giving me the position. I don't need it, and you're doing well enough on your own." I cross the room to the door. "See you tomorrow."

Since school hasn't technically ended yet, I leave through the main office, passing the display cases, which remind me why I don't usually leave this way. Floor-to-ceiling glass cases line the way, displaying the achievements of various sports teams and clubs. They're supposed to get changed every few weeks- kind of like a bulletin board meant to keep everyone updated- but the newspaper display hasn't changed since September. The pictures from that night- _my_ pictures- still hang up.

I avoid looking at them, and in the process run into Christophe Giacometti, who's coming out of the bathroom looking dismantled and out of breath.

"Hey,watch it," he sneers as he heads in the opposite direction of the front doors. I remember what Minako said and shudder.

I don't want to stick around to see his partner in crime, so I hustle out to my car, all the while thinking that it would only take a shoelace more to break the ice beneath my feet.

/ /

 _a/n:_ _mr. sharma is based on my junior year physics teacher, mr. pogula. i loved that man- except when he was trying to teach me physics, lol. kinda an odd guy. this is kinda the calm before the storm._

 _next chapter- the newspaper club faces an act of disrespect towards them, and yuuri, through a conversation with minami, starts to suspect something is off about phichit's death._

 _as always, find me on tumblr at antspaul or on at the goddess of percabeth._

 _see you next monday!_


	3. Broken Glass

" _Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world's weight he had never chosen to bear."_

― _F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned_

It takes all the willpower I possess to drag myself out of bed the next morning, and even then I arrive at school fifteen minutes late. Which would normally give me anxiety, but I'm too tired and fed up with school to care and besides, I'm missing AP Gov, which I assure you is no tragedy.

As I head down the main halfway, tardy pass in hand, I pass the display cases and notice with insulted intrigue but not surprise something is slightly different than yesterday. More than slightly, I'd say. The newspaper case is no longer enclosed by its glass barrier. Clearly someone- or something- smashed the case this morning or last night. My pictures are absent from the case as well, which is welcome, but also a punch to the face. The newspaper club barely has the internal support it needs. This act feels like a definitive pledge from the student body that the club is truly sunk.

Later that day, during free period, I'm not the first to bring it up. Minami seems to be more disturbed than anyone, and we can barely get him to stop shaking in anger, but he's about as ferocious as a kitten.

Still, I sympathize. I might have gone AWOL these past few months, but this club is still a part of who I am. Some of my fondest memories surround the club, and the kind boy who worked so hard to establish it. To just disrespect that is… an infringement, I guess, on his memory.

"Who do you think did it?" I ask, leaning back in my chair. "Also why now? That display hasn't changed for months. They must've had hundreds of opportunities before yesterday."

Yuuko sighs. "I heard a few names floating around this morning- you know. Michele Crispino, Alex Rippon. The usual suspects, I guess."

Georgi snorts. "Michele can't do a pushup and Alex is a dumbass. Pass."

I think briefly that Georgi isn't particularly strong on either front, but I keep my thoughts to myself. "Any word from the teachers about it?"

No one has heard anything, apparently. It isn't exactly the talk of the school.

Minami says, "They'd better get caught. Ergh!" Then he folds his arms and pouts. It's almost funny.

"Can't they just look at the fucking tape?" asks Anya, appearing more intrigued in the dirt underneath her nails than the conversation at hand.

We all look to Otabek, the resident office aide and authority on whatever goes on behind the front desk. "Last I checked, the security camera faces the cases. It should have caught the culprit." He shrugs.

We patiently wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn't. Typical of soft-spoken Otabek. Takeshi breaks the silence.

"In that case we'll find out later. Hey, how you think they'll punish him?"

Georgi scoffs. "That depends on who he is. If it's, like, fucking _JJ Leroy_ or some shit then he might get off with a day in detention. But if it was one of us-"

"Suspension or worse," Minami squeaks. "It isn't fair."

Anya scoots her chair back so it makes a horrible screeching noise and kicks her feet up on the tables. "No offense, dude, but why the hell are you so fucking upset about it? I mean, it's bull, but you're about to combust over there."

Anya might be abrasive, tactless, and always high, but I never said she was stupid.

His face turns bright red and he wails, "They were Yuuri's pictures that he worked hard on! What if we have to replace the glass with our own money?"

We all frown at that, everyone painfully aware how low resources dwindle these days. Yuuko, bless her heart, tries to diffuse the situation.

"Minami, I'm sure that's not true. Why would we get punished for something that isn't our fault? It's ridiculous." She laughs, but it sounds only somewhat sincere, like she's trying to convince herself.

Minami sniffs. "Who else is gonna do it? The school can't even afford more than one security camera."

He has a point. Still, I try to reason with him. "They'll probably make whoever did it pay for damages."

Everyone seems satisfied with that, and we try to move on with our business without the shattered case ringing constant insult in our minds, but I doubt anybody succeeds. Even Anya looks more miffed than usual.

By the time the meeting ends, I've almost completely forgotten that this is only my second day back in the club since September. You know what they say- you can keep the boy out of the club, but you can't keep the club out of the boy. Or something like that. We always viewed the _Dispatch_ as our safe space, a haven of sorts from the chaotic douchebaggery of the general school population. In a way, I suppose I have whoever broke the case to thank. Nothing like a common enemy to unite people.

After everyone has filtered out and it's just Yuuko, and Takeshi in the room with me, Yuuko roots for something in her bag- a large manilla envelope. Clearing her throat, she straightens her back and casually hands it to me without explanation beyond, "Minako told me these were yours."

I tentatively reach out and take the envelope, not wholly untrusting but merely confused. "Thanks, I guess. See you tomorrow?"

She nods curtly and leaves, Takeshi close behind her as the door swings shut. Her swift exit has everything to do with the tense note we left on yesterday. If I know Yuuko she's behaving this way because she thinks _I'm_ angry at her or something, which isn't totally the case but I'm not really sure what I can do about it. I don't have the energy right now to not self-destruct.

Maybe I shouldn't say anything, but if I did, what would it be? _Sorry I'm still super sensitive that the person who replaced you as my best friend died, but to be honest I'm going to be that way for the foreseeable future, so you might as well get used to it._ Likely that would just make her cry, and I'd feel even guiltier.

I stick the envelope in my bag and head home, the rock in my stomach feeling heavier than normal. When I arrive home at Utopia Suites, Mom instructs me to man the front desk for a few hours while she takes my dad to his cardiologist appointment, so it's full dark by the time I can really sit down and open it.

And, sitting on my cold and messy bed, I wish that I hadn't. I wish that Yuuko had thrown the pictures out when they were returned to her following the incident with the case. I wish I had waited a few days to send them to Minako in the first place, because the last thing I want to do right now is look at the tired face of my best friend the day he died, even if he only exists in cut corners and blurry backgrounds.

Still, morbid fascination bars me from discarding the pictures or even tearing my eyes away, like a nasty rash or trainwreck. Thankfully, most of the pictures are of Victor, however covertly, but you can definitely tell where my mind was four months ago. I'm a bit ashamed of myself. My preoccupation with yielded to more important things as of late- such as the aforementioned ubiquitous rock- it still feels like a part of me, like the club.

Phichit's not in most of them, like I had feared- in fact he's visible in only three and completely focused in just one- a picture I took of the Homecoming Court. He stands next to a blurrier figure who I assume is Minami, judging by the strange clothes and red-streaked hair, and they're talking. Funny. I didn't even know they spoke that night, but the proof is right in front of me.

Maybe I'm too self-indulgent or maybe I'm masochistic or maybe I just miss my best friend too much to resist, but I find myself in front of Minami's table at lunch the next day with the picture in my hand.

Minami eats lunch with the other weird sophomores who are friends by default, and he brightens as I approach his table.

"Yuuri!" He waves dramatically, a pencil- shaved down to two or three inches- in his hand. "Hi! Is that a picture for the paper or something?"

I glance down the picture and shake my head. "No," I reply. "Is it okay if we talk somewhere less-" I look around the crowded lunchroom. Kids darts back and forth and everyone seems to be talking, reminding me of why I don't make a habit of eating here. I shrug. "Loud?"

He nods happily at me, then his friends, and shoves the rest of his lunch and the drawing papers into his bag. "See you guys later. Where to, Yuuri?"

I lead him to the secluded music hallway. One or two band kids litter the hall, and I can hear soft chatter from the nearby main office, but it's a great improvement from the overwhelming cafeteria.

I take a deep breath and pull out the picture. "I wanted to talk to you about… last September."

His face quirks in confusion. "What are you-" Then I hand him the picture and comprehension dawns on him. "Oh. I see. I'm guessing this is about Phichit."

I try not to flinch at the name, but I'm sure he notices. "Um… yeah."

His eyebrows draw together in concern. "Yuuri, are you sure you're okay with talking about this? In the past you've been… reluctant, I guess."

I bite my lip and shake my head. "No, I'll be fine, Minami. Don't you worry about me. I had a question to ask you about this picture, actually."

He smiles tightly to humor me. "Anything for you, Yuuri. You know that."

I do. I'm pretty sure the kid has had an unfortunate crush on me for years now, ever since he moved in next door to Phichit. I don't say any of that. "Do you remember talking to him that night?"

He nods. "Yeah, but Yuuri, what's this about? I'm not sure you're going about the healing process-"

I cut him off. "Do you remember what you talked about?"

He pauses reluctantly and thinks before shrugging. "Well, I mean- I didn't think the conversation was important at the time, you know? So I don't really remember exactly what it was about." He hand the picture back to me apologetically. "Sorry."

I sigh and slip the picture back in my bag. "Well, thanks anyway, Minami. I'm sure your friends are looking for you."

As I walk away, he quickly grabs my shoulder and says, "Wait! Hey, wait!"

I turn back around and raise my eyebrows, trying not to communicate how cross I feel- not with the fact that Minami couldn't indulge me, but with how the whole world feels fit to barge in on my personal business and tell me how to mourn. "Yes?"

He pauses and looks down, his hand still on my shoulder. I shrug it off and he apologizes quickly. "When you said that my friends were looking for me, it sorta reminded me of what we talked about that night. I think some kids were looking for him, maybe? I don't remember exactly but I think I was telling him that."

This piques my interest just enough to forgive him for now and listen more. "Really? Who was looking for him?"

Minami shrugs and I can tell the well has run dry. "I mean he looked kinda scared when I told him. Sorry I don't know more. It was a long time ago. But he didn't deserve to feel like that, you know? Maybe that's why he went home early."

With that, I've heard enough and thank Minami for talking to me. I leave him behind and head up to the library for some peace and quiet- what I need when all I want to do is think. I fashion myself a nest of sorts behind a bookcase but in front of a window and Minako turns a blind eye to my presence, even as the bell rings for the end of lunch.

As I sit there in a makeshift fort of pillows I close my eyes and let the images of the day float across my eyelids. The thing that disturbs me the most was what Minami said about Phichit being scared his last night. It doesn't seem fair and that really bugs me. I hate to admit it, but Minami could be onto something. Thinking back on it, he did look a little shaken up the last time I saw him.

Phichit always told me to be wary of coincidences. I try not to think what that could mean. Because it is hard enough to get over the accidental death of my best friend. I don't know what to do with the information that it could be more than that. The ice beneath me couldn't handle a shoelace. This is more like an anvil.

 _a/n: i hope you enjoyed the new chapter! i've been doing pretty good with uploading every monday. hopefully that continues, lol. This was a little shorter than usual, but next chapter is much longer, i promise. as always, this is cross-posted on under the username goddess of percabeth. find me on tumblr antspaul._

 _next chapter, the crew is surprised by the culprit and yuuri pays a visit to the county prison. Things are picking up!_

 _see you next monday!_


	4. Clovers

_"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." -William Blake_

Halfway through Physics the next day at school, I realize that I forgot to brainstorm possible subjects of interest for the _Dorsal Dispatch_. I quickly jot down some rudimentary ideas while pretending to pay attention to Mr. Sharma's drab powerpoint about acceleration: _movie reviews? Contests?_ Both are lame ideas but maybe later during the meeting a little working discourse will produce brighter ones.

Yuuko texts me halfway through the lesson that an administrator will be coming around during club later today to discuss the incident. She speculates that they discovered who the culprit is and want to talk to us about- I don't know, how much the case cost to repair or something.

I'm texting Yuuko a message back- _I guess we'll see in half an hour_ \- when Mr. Sharma creeps up behind me and with a disapproving frown confiscates my phone. I stay after to grovel for it back, citing some bullshit excuse about needing it for the club or something, I don't know. He reluctantly surrenders it after five minutes of begging, so I'm only a little late to the meeting.

Dr. Baranovskaya is, apparently, the "administrator" Yuuko warned me about. Even though newspaper club is a completely voluntary elective (tell that to Ms. Odagaki) and there are no consequences for tardiness, I still feel guilt for being late under her intense gaze as I slink into an empty desk with my back to the door. The other kids even sit up straighter than normal and put their phones away. Lilia- what we call her behind her back, as Dr. Baranovskaya can be quite the mouthful- has that effect, the ability to silence a room by simply walking in. I once heard a rumor that she used to be an operative for the KGB. A ridiculous claim, maybe- if you never met her.

Even Georgi looks alert and on edge, and I'm pretty sure Lilia used to be his foster mom. In fact, I think he's the one who told me the rumor about the KGB.

Yuuko quietly informs her that no one else is coming.

Lilia nods once, sharply, and clears her throat. "Of course, Ms. Ise. As I'm sure you have seen by now a member of the study body decided to vandalize the newspaper club display case. Yes?" Her eyes scan us fervently and we all nod to affirm our rapt attention. "Good. We have caught this student and are going to punish him fitly."

She says the word _punish_ like you'd say _pork_ or _poodle_. But I don't think anyone's correcting her word choice now, that's for sure.

Minami, a few seats down from me, fidgets with his pen and sketchbook and even though he doesn't speak, you could hear his thoughts a mile away. _They're going to make us pay for the display, I know it. I just know it. And that'll be the end of newspaper club. And I'll probably never have friends again._ Maybe that's a little more dramatic than he's emoting at the minute, but I know him well enough and come on. The poor kid's eyes glisten with unshed tears. I may have anxiety problems myself, but Minami takes the cake on sweating the small stuff.

Lilia continues to talk about the process of finding the culprit and the deliberation of choosing an apt consequence and I mostly listen out of both fear and respect (which are kind of the same thing, in her case).

I don't totally buy the stuff about "finding a proper punishment" because I'm pretty sure the incident counts as vandalism- a level 3 infraction according to the code of conduct with a _minimum_ consequence of Teen Court and suspension. But if they were serving those consequences, we would know by now, which means whoever did it is a Special Circumstance kid- the basketball team captain, or the valedictorian. Maybe Yuuko was onto something.

But we'll find out soon enough, it turns out, because what the mighty Dean of Discipline has decided is "apt punishment" in lieu of _court_ is to sic them with the newspaper club for the next two months. They'll work off their damages, starting today.

A righteous sort of anger engulfs me at the thought of working together with the culprit on the very paper they disrespected in front of the whole school and I'm not alone. Phichit would be proud. Everyone else in the circle adopts a tightness to their lips but don't dare say anything, not in front of Dr. Baranovskaya and not right before whoever he or she is walks through the door. We hear their footsteps.

I'm so angry that I don't immediately turn around to face them but I see everyone else when they do. Otabek and Anya predictably stay stone-faced, while Takeshi and Yuuki look concerned. Minami tilts his head to the side in confusion. But it's Georgi's reaction- an indignant yelp and loud cry of what I can only assume are Russian slurs before yelling "Of fucking course!"- prompts me to turn around. My jaw hits the floor when I do.

Whoever I expected the offender to be, it's not _him_.

Mr. Morooka stands next to the star of the football team, the gem of Thomas M. Fisher High, my former friend and not-so-former crush, Victor Nikiforov, with a comforting hand placed gently on one of his shoulders.

"Hi," Victor says lamely and gives a wave that's even more pathetic than the greeting.

He's met with silence from all of us students.

Lilia nods at Mr. Morooka. "Thank you for excorting him here. Ms. Ise, I trust you have this under control?"

Yuuko nods, still confused.

Lilia approaches the door but stops in front of Victor. "We let you off easy, you understand that? Don't mess this up."

He uncomfortably nods, and both teachers leave the room with an atmosphere of tension that is so tangible you could it with a knife. Victor takes a seat a few desks down from me. He tries, but I refuse to meet his eyes.

His presence mixed with lingering thoughts from last night still lingering in my head almost convince me to leave the meeting early. Still, I think they need me here. While I doubt Victor will actually participate, there's an unmissable air of uneasiness from just having him here. Even Anya rolls her eyes and scowls.

Yuuko loses her train of thought there for a second so I clear my throat and gently prompt her, "Hey, Yuuko, didn't you say we were supposed to bring some ideas to discuss today?"

That snaps her out of it and she nods. "Yes, that's right. Thanks Yuuri." She surveys the room. "Did everyone think of something?"

Silence, mostly. Otabek and I nod and Minami pulls out several crumpled up pieces of paper from his backpack. Georgi just huffs and stares angrily at Victor. I pity their foster father. Anya doesn't bother to respond.

We try to brainstorm anyway, but don't get very far, at least not with good ideas. The best comes from Minami, some sort of community partnership? I don't exactly follow and it sounds far-fetched anyway. By the end of the meeting, we have nothing and everyone just wants to leave the uncomfortable atmosphere behind.

Yuuko caps the Expo market she used to write down what we said on the whiteboard and shifts on her feet. "Okay. Any other ideas, guys?"

Silence, at first. Then, just before Yuuko dismisses us, a throat clears behind me. "I don't think you're going about this the right way."

We all turn, surprised Victor decided to contribute. Spite curls cruelly in my stomach, next to indignance that he not only spoke, but had the gall to _criticise_ us. No one responds.

Victor sighs and folds his hands on his desk. "Sorry. I know I'm unwelcome here. I understand. But I'm here now, so perhaps you could hear me out."

Georgi rolls his eyes dramatically. "You can never keep your mouth shut. We don't _want_ you here."

Anya places a hand on his arm, maybe in support, maybe to keep him from jumping across our desks to deck Victor. Minami fidgets violently with his hands like he's ready to help Georgi. I don't want to strangle Victor presently, but that doesn't mean I agree with him.

Before I change my mind, I say, "Georgi isn't wrong. This isn't fair. If any of the rest of us had vandalised school property, we'd get suspended or worse. And your punishment is to join us?" I surprise myself by addressing him directly. I swallow. "Haven't you done enough already?"

My words end more like a plea than sharp jab. I want him gone. It's hard enough to be here as it is. Victor slumps back down in his chair. A hurt look flickers across his face. A few months ago, hurting Victor's feelings would have driven me to the edge. But my faith in him is just one of the many things I've lost since.

"Nevermind," he says, "Forget that I ever said anything."

Yuuko shoots me a look that fully communicates how uncalled for she believes my words were and _Do you really want to risk Lilia for_ this _, Yuuri?_

She shakes her head at Victor, still maintaining a professional and ambassadorial front. "No, it's alright. We're open to all ideas, no matter where they come from. Please, share."

Victor hesitates but he's still confident, even here in what should be our territory. He has a similar effect to Lilia in that he totally occupies any space he enters. "I suppose… the newspaper used to be very popular, yes? Why was that?"

I want to say, _Because we had Phichit. He actually knew how to do this stuff._ But it sticks in my throat. Instead, Otabek answers, "They liked the stories."

Obviously. But no one is ready to totally humor him just yet.

Victor presses forward. "Of course. But what about them did they like?"

After a moment of silence, Yuuko says, "We published a lot of hard-hitting stories. They were interesting. But since then we've mainly focused on community and world news. Entertainment. Stuff like that."

She's assuming he doesn't read the newspaper anymore. Barely anyone does. But I don't remember him ever reading the paper in the first place, even when we used to be friends.

Anyway, her answer is basically the same as mine, rephrased. Phichit always wrote the "hard-hitting news", sometimes employing the others to edit or investigate or in my case, take pictures.

"I don't think that's why," Victor says and I'm offended. He catches on to this and quickly clarifies, "They were interesting, of course. But I think the reason everybody loved them so much was because they were about them. You could open the paper and read about your friends."

We don't respond right away because he has a point.

"So we could interview students with a special talent or something. Our foster brother Yurio plays violin." He pauses and waits expectantly.

Takeshi breaks the silence. "That's… not the worst idea I've heard today."

Yuuko nods, because she just wants to save the paper. "Yeah, actually. It's simple, but… it might work. Any other people in mind?"

I bite my tongue. The meeting ends thirty minutes later than expected because Yuuko takes Victor's idea and rolls with it, assigning us all roles in the process. It's irritating and not what I would have done in her position, but as I've told her several times by now, it isn't my decision anymore. If Yuuko wants to run a series of features about our most talented students, she can.

We spend the next two meetings before the weekend continuing to develop a gameplan for these interviews. I can feel everyone- besides Georgi- begin to warm up to Victor and that irritates me to no end. Do they not remember why he's there in the first place? Are they blind?

Regardless, I'm relieved when Saturday finally arrives. Because while Victor is a problem in and of itself, I have larger matters to lose sleep over.

At 8 a.m., I tell my mother some flimsy excuse about working on a group project in the library and hop in my car to drive the ninety minutes it takes to get to the state penitentiary, wondering all the while if I'm crazy. What am I thinking, visiting the man who confessed to killing my best friend less than six months ago?

He's not expecting me, that's for sure. While I sit in a hard chair with my hands flat on the small table in front of me, I hear a commotion coming from behind the door where the COs bring prisoners out. It pierces through the relative silence of the visitation room, which is empty except for me.

"I'm telling you, you're making a mistake," an Italian voice bellows. The door opens widely and out comes the very man I'm here to see. His CO escorts him over to my table but I guess he hasn't seen me yet. "No one beside my kid has visited me in four months and no one's-"

Then he notices me and stops his objections. "Yuuri. I didn't expect to see you here."

I shrug. "I'm on your list, aren't I?"

He takes a seat across from me and places his hands on the table as well. "Well, of course, but-" He swallows, and blinks, before continuing, "I didn't think you'd actually show up."

"Good to see you, too, Celestino," I reply dryly and he shakes his head with the flick of his hand. He hit the nail on the head, but while I've sheltered my fair share of resentment towards him, but I don't hate him. How many people drink and drive? The only difference between them and him is that when he did it, he killed me best friend.

But I'm not in the habit of holding grudges. I know the guilt of what he did weighs him down. To me, that's adequate punishment for his crime.

"No, no, you know I didn't mean it like that." He presses the wrists of his hand together and stares at the place they touch, avoiding eye contact with me. "If you came here because you pity me, you might as well go home, Yuuri, and forget all about me. I've done enough."

His words echo words I said to Victor at the newspaper club meeting three days ago. _Haven't you done enough already?_ It reminds me why I'm here- that this isn't a social visit.

I sigh and tap lightly on the table with my ring finger. "No, that's actually not why I came."

He looks up at that, suspicious. "So what, then? You want to yell at me for what I did? Go ahead. I suppose I deserve it."

But I shake my head. Maybe coming was a mistake, but it's one I'll follow through on. "No, that's not it either. But I did… I did want to talk to you. About- you know. What happened."

I want to clarify, say more about it, but like a few days before, his name sticks in my throat. It doesn't matter anyway. Celestino knows exactly what I mean.

He nods slowly and takes a long breath. "I owe you as much." He shoves his shoulders back and tries to put on a brave face but this probably hurts him as much it does me. "What more do you want to know? I had too many, went driving when I shouldn't have, hit the kid." He flinches. He doesn't say Phichit's name either. "Not much more to it than that."

He has a point, but I'm not convinced. I can't be if I'm really entertaining this theory. "Okay, sure. I knew all of that."

He shrugs. Celestino is only about 45, but he looks nearer to 60 because of the life he's lived. I remember him telling me and Phichit years ago about all of the crazy things he did living in the projects just to get by. Ate crackers and ketchup from Wendy's when his mother couldn't feed him. Donated plasma twice a week just to pay for the rundown trailer he rented in Phichit's neighborhood along with his drinking habit. The man is no stranger to poverty, which makes him the perfect scapegoat for a crime. His story is predictable from beginning to end. Especially in his own head.

"How drunk were you that night? How many beers had you had?" I press on. There's something more here than either of us knows.

He shifts in his chair uncomfortably. "I don't know, Yuuri. Clarissa called me, said I couldn't have Angelina for the weekend. So I drank maybe two bottles of wine, maybe three. I don't remember exactly. But I got really upset about Angelina and tried to go see her. That's where I was going when I-" he swallows. "Hit and ran."

I nod. He may not be the most morally upright man, but he loves his daughter Angelina to death. I'll give him that. "Right, okay. But do you remember specifically hitting him?"

He thinks, long and hard about this. "Not exactly," he replies reluctantly. "I don't know what you're getting at here, Yuuri, but I know I hit him. I was shit-faced, pretty much driving in the middle of the road. I remember seeing their lights coming towards me and swerving off the road and into the ditch." He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I must've hit him then, I know it. Who else could it have been? The police said they were looking for a drunk driver around 9:15 p.m. Friday night who hit and run. That's me, Yuuri."

It takes me a second to process this because I didn't actually think I would be surprised by this visit. "So you don't remember seeing him?"

He shakes his head and leans tiredly on one hand. "No, but why does that matter? I probably did, just forgot."

My mind runs too fast to answer his question, so I ask him another. "And when you veered off the road to avoid the other car, you ended up in the ditch to your right?"

He nods. "That's right. Opposite of the other car."

I frown because that shouldn't be right. A few weeks after Phichit's death, someone from the local Baptist megachurch erected a gigantic memorial in his honor, all ribbons and flowers and crosses despite the fact that he was Buddhist and his family requested its removal. Everyone who's been on that road since now knows exactly where he died.

But Celestino hasn't been on that road since, has he? So he wouldn't know.

I breathe in and out slowly. My hands shake. I feel dizzy because now I'm on to something, and I didn't want to be. "Celestino," I start slowly. "If what you just told me is true-"

"It is," he interjects. "I've gone over what happened a thousand times in my head since then, you know? I told you what I'm sure about."

"Then you couldn't have hit him," I finish. "He died on the other side of the road. Hit by a car that was incoming, not outgoing. It must have been the other car that did it- the one that made you swerve off the

I wonder how the police never caught on to that, but it's not that far of a stretch. The police department here is quick to convict poor drunks like Celestino. I doubt he even made much of a statement.

Celestino waits to respond. I'm not sure what he's thinking. I half-expect him to start cursing about his innocence, or demand to see his lawyer, or maybe try to hug me from relief.

He does none of those things. Instead, he closes his eyes and sighs, running a hand tiredly over his face. "So you think I'm innocent? You aren't telling me anything I haven't thought about already, kid," he says. "I'm sorry you wasted a visit."

My face turns hot with indignation. "What do you mean by that? You _are_ innocent, and you're sitting in jail while the person who really did it runs free on the outside!"

He shakes his head and does the thing with his wrists again. He starts to look agitated. "Even if I didn't hit him, I'm not innocent, Yuuri. I deserve to be locked up, if not just for all of shit I put my family through over the years."

I must look lost. I put a hand to my head incredulously.

He notices and elaborates, "I know what you're thinking. The person who really did kill your friend should be here instead, right? Or at least here with me?"

I nod, still confused. But I don't miss the detached way he refers to Phichit- _your friend_ \- like we hadn't known him since childhood. Like we hadn't spent countless summers on the small piece of grass in front of his trailer, searching for four-leaf clovers and listening to his crazy stories inappropriate for kids our age.

"As far as I'm concerned, I did kill him. He'd probably be alive today if I weren't a drunk. Maybe the other car swerved to avoid me too, and hit him then. Maybe for some reason I'm remembering it wrong and I veered off the wrong side of the road. Like I said, it doesn't matter now."

Softly, I ask him, "But don't you want to get out of prison to see Angelina?"

He chuckles. "She visits me here. She's sixteen, she's a big girl. She can handle herself out there, with just her mother for another five years until I get out of here. In the meantime, they don't treat me so bad. Hey, you know I joined AA? I just got my fourth chip. Three months clean. The guy who runs the meetings- his kid goes to school with you. We call him X-man, but," he shrugs. "Not his real name, obviously. Ring a bell?"

I shake my head. I'm happy for him, but he's deflecting. "So you're seriously going to reject any help to get you out of here?"

He nods and crosses his arm. "I barely used my lawyer, even. I know where I should be."

I sigh and stand up. There's no point to me being here anymore. "Well, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm sure you had many more worthwhile things to do with your time."

He waves the thought away. "Yuuri, I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm not sad I got arrested. It's gonna turn out to be a good thing, in the end. I'm sorry you can't see that now."

I shove the chair back under the table. His wrongful imprisonment- which I'm pretty sure now that's what it is- may have been the wakeup call he needed, but to him, Phichit was a martyr. To me, he was my best friend. And that means that whoever killed him, really, is still free. And if I'm right about his suspicious behavior the night he died, it wasn't the accident Celestino thinks it is. If he won't go to the police, then they won't reopen the investigation. That means if I want them found, I'll have to take matters into my own hands.

"I know you're trying to do right by your daughter. I get that." I turn to stalk away, but throw back one last jab. "But because of you a _murderer_ is free. Just think about that." I turn just in time to see his hurt face. "Take care of yourself, Ciao Ciao."

I can't get away from the jail fast enough. But it's not enough. I want to drive far, far away from that stupid town and classist police department back to a time when things weren't easier, but simpler and the investigation of our lives was searching for four-leaf clovers in the ditches of a road untouched by blood.

 _a/n: i hope you enjoyed the new chapter! this one was a lot of fun to write, but also a pain in the ass. reviews/favorites are greatly appreciated! as always, find me on tumblr at antspaul or on fanfiction . net at goddess of percabeth, where this is also posted. make sure to follow to get alerted to when I update next! i'm not sure i'm going to update next monday, but i'll definitely be back in action some point next week. i just want to create a backlog of chapters, that's all._

 _next chapter, yuuri creates a list of suspects and continues to clash with Victor, not to mention with his prime suspect. let me know down in the comments if you have any idea who the killer is! i know i've hinted at it a little, lol._


	5. Running on Empty

_Chapter summary:_ _Yuuri brainstorms people who might have wanted to hurt his best friend. Then, at newspaper club, he snaps._

I arrive back at my house shortly after two o'clock and I'm still shaken and furious and a little bit lost. All this new information swims around in my head, churning, and I don't know what to do with it. I thought that maybe if I talked to Celestino about his false imprisonment, he could make an appeal and the police would take over the investigation, do what I cannot. All that sleuthing stuff- it's never been my forte.

But if I don't have his support, then I for sure won't find any help from our classist police department. That was a long shot, anyway. Sometimes you just have to do things yourself, even if you aren't good enough or don't want to do them, because they need to be done.

Ironically, the one person best suited to do this is the one person who can't.

But I go on.

I'm itching to start, but my mom puts me to work at the reception desk as soon as I walk through the front door, so I have a little time to myself. Business rarely picks up before 7 on most days, and often later than that.

I think. I write down what I know on motel stationery in fading red ink. How did Phichit do this? He never investigated a murder, certainly, but he still had a process that I never paid so much attention to. I preferred to stay out of the way while he poked his nose into the business of others and got in trouble.

But I still knew him well enough to know some semblance of his thought process. Logic, and maybe a smaller Phichit in the back of my head, tells me to start with the basics. So you suspect foul play. What next?

Think about the facts, he would say. Then fit the suspect to the facts.

Okay. The facts. Though it hurts to think about, I do my best to recall the last time I saw Phichit. He left the game at about twenty minutes before it ended, around 9:50, visibly shaken. Sometime in the next hour, he was struck by a car and killed.

From that, I can guess a few things about the suspect. One: he or she attended the game last night, because they saw Phichit leave. And something happened there that got him spooked. A start, but nearly everyone was there that night. It doesn't narrow down the endless list so far, but that does mean they probably go to Fisher High as a student.

Then, they had to know where Phichit lived. And that he walked, but again, that narrows it down very little. Fisher is small enough that every year, the school publishes a directory including the phone numbers and addresses of the entire student body. You can choose to opt out, but no one besides the children of teachers does. Phichit didn't, so anyone who wanted to find his road could.

Again, not very helpful. But that's opportunity.

As for means- the car- almost everyone here owns a car, or at least can convince their parents to lend them their old truck. But wait- you have to have a parking pass to park at the football games. That's not much to go on, of course, but it's a start. It also eliminates most freshman and sophomores, but that doesn't surprise me. Homicide- whether premeditated or not- is an adult sin. Adults have something to lose.

Something Phichit knew about.

I write that down. The soft scratches of pen on paper echo through the deserted lobby. I glance at the clock. 3:38. More than three hours till the rush.

That brings me to motive. That's how it goes, isn't it? Opportunity, means, motive. A more substantial consideration, in the grand scheme of things, because Phichit made many enemies during his three years at Fisher. I don't pretend to know everything about Phichit, but I've proofread enough of his articles to know the likely suspects.

Phichit busted three major stories in the last few years. The first: a cheating ring ran by the obligatory social outcast clique, the kind of people who wear tails to school and claim the word "weird" like it makes them some sort of nobility. You know the type. Anyway, once Phichit showed administration his proof that these kids were selling assignments, the principal sent the majority of them to the county "alternative" school where I'm sure they got along swimmingly with their peers who had earned _their_ admission by the petty crimes of gang violence or bringing guns to school.

Some of them are back now, but they stick out in a crowd and I don't recall seeing any of them at the game. Besides, the timing doesn't really fit. Phichit busted them sophomore year. Why retaliate now?

I sigh and sit back in my seat. The lobby is still uninhabited, the annoyingly faint elevator music playing softly in the background. I'm starting to worry myself with how lackadaisical I'm acting about _murder_. I lean towards numbness as my coping mechanism of choice, I suppose. I can't even bring myself to say his name aloud.

I digress. The second scandal was something about dishonesty with the cafeteria menu or something. It did lead to a worker's termination, but I find it hard to believe a disgruntled old lunch lady pulled this off. Besides, I'm pretty sure it was a student. Next.

The third scandal was by far Phichit's most notorious and precarious. It also happened most recently of all three, towards the end of our junior year. While the rest of the student body studied for AP tests and Finals, Phichit busted a drug dealer.

Let me explain.

Last April, we had three students overdose on oxycontin _during school hours_. Thankfully, they all survived without much lingering or permanent damage. But the school knew that they had a potential drug dealer among their student body that was selling during school hours. They tried to weasel a name out of the three students to no avail, and it was only a matter of time before someone got truly hurt.

When Phichit told me of his plans to start investigating, I immediately told him I wanted nothing to do with it. It was too dangerous, I told him. His "normal" investigations gave me bad enough anxiety. But he insisted, and a month later he managed to turn in the oxycontin dealer and collected a substantial reward because of it.

The dealer was Miras Altin. He went to prison, but last I heard he wanted to make an appeal. An appeal that would be hard to win with Phichit as a witness…

It dawns on me. Miras was in jail last September. But his brother, Otabek, wasn't. He attended the game that night, and never seemed too fond of my best friend.

Which makes him suspect number one right now.

Someone, finally, walks through the front doors towing a suitcase behind them and I'm forced to tear my eyes away from my notes. Before I do, I circle his name with the enthusiasm of a death row prisoner deciding his last meal and wonder how I'm going to face him in school tomorrow.

Over the next few weeks, my life treads precariously between stranger than fiction and too weird to handle. We at the newspaper club almost forget the circumstances that gave us Victor and he molds into the background of the club. When I walk into the media lab, I expect him to be there, which is more than I ever expected.

Phichit always said I forgave too easily. Maybe I cared for Victor too long to stay mad. Maybe I'm too exhausted suspecting Otabek to hold any resentment towards Victor.

He tries not to intrude and always volunteers to help line edit or vacuum or any other grunt work the rest of us don't want. I'm still deeply annoyed by what happened but I don't snap every time he tries to speak now, which is good. I don't need _more_ anger and hostility in my life.

The last burst of anger escapes my tired body a few days into February, when Yuuko calls a meeting to try and finalize the list and the schedule of the student interviews, and it happens in an unexpected way. I'm already on edge as a result of a combination of insomnia and stress, which are interconnected anyway. I just want to get through the meeting so I can go home and nap.

But the meeting drags on for a solid hour, and we still can't decide on a definite schedule and lineup.

"No, no, that won't work," Minami's arguing and Georgi sends him one of his token death glares. "I can't stay next Tuesday. That's when anime club meets."

We groan and roll our eyes. We're down to the last few students' interviews, but trying to find a day where one of us can stay after to ask questions to Ketty Abelashvili is proving harder than I'd hoped.

Annoyance and exasperation quells in my stomach and I just want to go _home_. "For heaven's sake, Minami, just skip it! No one besides you cares about that stupid club."

Minami recoils, eyes glistening and I instantly feel remorseful. Everyone's eyes glare at my outburst and I sigh, expecting a sizable reprimand from Yuuko. But none comes, not from her, anyway.

"You didn't have to say it like that," a low voice says calmly to my left. Otabek crosses his arms as he continues, "Maybe it isn't important to you, but it is to him."

I freeze as white hot rage burns my throat like bile. Otabek stares, unprovoked. "Excuse me? Did you say something?"

Otabek leans back in his seat, arms still crossed. "That was rude. I think you should apologize."

Tension rises in the air, thick as tar. The rest of the club appears stricken, like they don't know what to do, which makes sense because Otabek rarely talks and I rarely argue with Minami.

"That's great. But I don't want to hear it from you."

Otabek's eyebrows furrow but he's unphased. "I don't know what you're taking so personal about this. Just apologize and move on."

I roll my eyes dramatically and lean across my desk towards him. My feet press firmly on the floor, ready to stand at any time. "You don't tell me what to do." The words sound childish coming from my mouth. "How do you live with yourself? How do you come back to the club every day with a clear conscience?"

Otabek just shakes his head and narrows his eyes. He raises his voice louder than I've heard it in a while. "You're making no sense!"

I stand up to retaliate, but Yuuko pops up next to me and lays a hand on my shoulder. "Woah, there, Yuuri, I think it's very clear Otabek doesn't know what you're talking about. Maybe sit back down and we can talk about things rationally? Because I think there's more to this than you're saying."

Her suggestions are lost on me.

My voice raises, too, but in pitch, "Otabek doesn't know?" I thread my shaking hands through my hair and pull. My eyes sting with tears. "Just like your brother didn't know anything about the oxycontins, right?"

Yuuko grips my arm tighter and starts to whisper soothing words in my ear. She recognizes better than anyone, sans Phichit, the onset of a panic attack. "Yuuri, you need to breathe. Come on, sit down."

Otabek stands now. "Is that what this is about? Miras? I'm sorry he beat up Phichit last year, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I was glad he went to prison!"

"You're both fucking crazy," Mila says loudly. Georgi elbows her, like _not the time_.

"Everyone calm down!" Takeshi shouts.

I don't know exactly how to respond to that so I just plop back down in my seat, put my face in my hands, and try to breathe normally. Silence envelops the room as my lungs gradually slow down to a reasonable pace.

I keep my hands on my face, though. A chair scrapes at the floor.

Minami breaks the silence. "Put me down for Tuesday."

Yuuko I guess scribbles his name down. Her pen clicks a few times. "So the next student to schedule is Mila Crispino. She says that she can meet us after school next Friday, or any Wednesday. Can-" she swallows. "Can anyone take that?"

"Yeah I can do it," Georgi says. "If-"

Victor interrupts him before he can finish. "So we're going to just ignore that whole thing, then?"

I remove my hands slowly from my face. Victor's top lip curls back and his eyebrows rise.

"Here at the Dorsal Dispatch we observe and ignore," Anya drawls, rolling her eyes. "You should know that, now that you're one of us."

"One of us." I scoff. Then I stand up abruptly and throw my backpack on, exiting as hastily as possible.

As I walk towards the front door, I hear Anya say, "Don't look at me like I said anything. We all know Nikiforov should've kept his fucking m-"

Then I can't hear her anymore.

When I get home that night, all the feelings I didn't even know were stewing around in my head let themselves out and I just cry, cry, cry until there's nothing left and then that's it. I'm empty, incapable of holding onto any more hurt.

 _a/n: I hope you enjoyed today's chapter! Thank you to everyone who has been leaving kudos. They really mean a lot to me! you have no idea. i'm sorry that i took a break! i really needed it lol. i was running a little behind on my personal writing schedule for this fanfiction and APs are this week and next, so i've been swamped. things should be a little more normal from here on out. hopefully, lol._

 _i know this chapter was a little shorter than usual, but i promise it's important and a turning point in both the story and in victor and yuuri's relationship. we're pretty much through all of the exposition and stuff, people! time to get to the good content LMAO_

 _next chapter, victor and yuuri have an important conversation and yurio makes his first appearance. i'm excited for you all to see it!_

 _as always, you can find me on tumblr at antspaul or on at the goddess of percabeth_


	6. Periphery of Normal

**The Periphery of Normal**

"Well, what about a king and a twin? Check the vacancies on that."

I shake my head politely and resist the urge to scream. "I'm sorry, Mr. Curtis, we don't offer that type of room. I believe we have a room available with a queen and a full pull-out couch. Would that work?"

Mr. Curtis frowns deeply like he's been doing for the last twenty minutes. His wife and two kids- twin little boys with boundless energy who keep running back and forth around the lobby- wait behind him. His mouth twists in contemplation. "How about a… king and a pull-out couch? Or one of those little cot things. Do you got one of those?"

I sigh and type a few things into the computer. "I believe we have a king suite available, but I'm afraid that would increase the price by about fifty dollars. Is that okay?"

In the end, the indecisive Mr. Curtis finally agrees to take it, relieving his tired wife, and I text Mari to man the front desk and finish checking in the Curtises while I scout out a cot.

 _Evil child. I'm off for another half hour. Be there in a sec,_ she texts back and I chuckle at her brazen but fake contempt.

 _Thanks. I'll make it short._

 _You'd better. Heading out there now._

When I return from rummaging through the storage shed for the cot and deliver it to the Curtises' room, I find Mari still at the front desk, but not alone like I'd thought. She stands, talking to Victor animatedly but stops abruptly when she sees me coming.

"Oh, hi, Yuuri." She points a thumb at Victor. "You have a visitor."

"I can see that." I sigh tiredly as I rejoin Mari behind the desk. "What are you doing here?"

He holds up a grocery bag of takeout boxes and Mari sneaks out, probably to head back outside to smoke another cigarette. "What time do you get off work?"

I pause. He shifts from one foot to another. My watch says 5:46. "Fifteen minutes. You can wait in the dining room, if you'd like."

He nods staunchly. "Of course." Then he takes a seat at the table closest to the lobby, so I have to stare at him playing games on his phone and for fifteen minutes of absolutely no business whatsoever.

When Mari finally relieves me once and for all at six, I beckon him to follow me as I head towards my room at the far end of the motel. I wonder what he wants and hope he didn't come to just continue the argument from earlier. I've made my peace with it, apologized to Minami and Otabek and decided not to pursue the latter as a suspect until I'm absolutely sure he did it.

Phichit always told me that's how he managed to get away with all of the vigilante stuff he did without being branded as, well, a vigilante.

We reach my room and I open the door for us, firmly shutting it behind me. I sit on one end of my bed and gesture for him to do the same. He talks off his shoes, and joins me with the food whilst staying completely silent. We sit like that for a minute until Victor unties the bag around the takeout containers and clears his throat.

"Mari told me you like Thai food, but I didn't know where to get any. So I just bought Chinese takeout. Is that okay? It's just orange chicken and rice."

He offers one of the containers to me and I take it reluctantly, nodding. "What is this, a bribe?"

He hands me a fork and a napkin. "A peace offering. An apology."

I look up at him, surprised. "An apology?" I echo. "Why? It was me, I was wrong. I already told Minami and Otabek I was sorry."

He shakes his head. "What was that about, again? No, nevermind. That's not what I'm talking about. For the last month I was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself I never really stopped to think about how I must look to the rest of you."

"You look pretty bad," I admit but there's no malice behind my words.

He nods calmly and opens his own styrofoam container of chicken and rice. "I get that. I don't blame you."

I start to relax a little and I reply, "We thought administration would suspend you or something."

He shakes his head and chuckles, looking incredulous. "I know, I thought so too! I break something of yours and they send me to work with you?" Victor scoffs. "The administration of our school is more corrupt than the government."

I shrug. "Maybe they thought we would beat you up, and that would be your punishment."

Victor raises his eyebrows at me and I shake my head.

"Yeah, I know," I continue. "Takeshi could've got you good, though, you have to admit."

"Maybe," Victor concedes, mouth full of rice. "Maybe, but I'm sorry. I know how much the club means to you, and I shouldn't have assumed I could ever really be a part of it."

"Technically, Anya assumed you were one of us."

"Still."

I think things over, take a bite of the chicken and nod. "Thanks for the apology. I accept it."

This seems to surprise Victor as he almost chokes on his food. He manages to swallow it. "Wait, you really do?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Do you not want me to, or…?"

He shakes his head vigorously. "No, no, no! Of course I want to to accept." He shrugs sheepishly. "That doesn't mean I _expected_ you to."

"Okay. Good. I've never been good at holding grudges, anyway." I pause. "And dor the record, I had only been back to the club for a few days when you showed up. I quit back in October when-" My voice cracks and I stop.

"Phichit," Victor guesses. "I get it. Go on."

I clear my throat awkwardly. "Yeah. But Ms. Odagaki wanted me to join a club, maybe for college applications or something. So I just came back." I shrug. "I didn't really want to."

Victor purses his lips. "I could understand that."

"Besides, no one in the club is really that mad at you," I tell him. "You charmed your way back into their hearts."

"But not yours," he guesses. "I suppose you know my tricks too well for that."

Well, I used to. "Some days I forget we were friends," I admit. "September feels like a lifetime ago."

He nods solemnly. "I know exactly what you mean."

Our exchange, the light banter, the food- looks like something out of a normal life. It's average in a way I haven't felt in months, but even during our first friendship, this would never have happened like this. I was too enamored back then with the _idea_ of him, the Victor I constructed in my head over years of pining, that I choked nearly every time we talked. Ironically, it took drastic events to knock him off his pedestal down to my level.

"Hey, Victor? Can I ask you a question?"

He smiles tightly. "Of course."

I swallow a bite of food and lay down my fork. "Why did you do it?"

He looks down, knowing exactly what I'm asking. Then he sighs, looks up, and speaks. "It wasn't you, if that's what you think. I got into a fight, I suppose, and then when I left school, I saw my pictures in the display case. And in that moment, I just hated myself so much that I just...broke. I don't remember even punching the glass. I just remember it really, really hurting."

The informations mulls around in my head. "Were you fighting with your girlfriend?"

Victor nods. "Ex, now."

Even though I'm no longer infatuated with him, the weird _girlfriend_ still punches me in the gut. I continue, "Was it Isabella?"

This takes Victor aback and he repeats, "Isabella? Why on Earth would you think it would be her?"

I shrug and shake my head. "I don't know. The night everything happened I saw you talking to her." I swallow. "Hugging her, and stuff."

Victor squints his eyes. The sun has almost completely sunk below the horizon, but I don't turn on a light. "I might remember that." He sighs. "She had just told me some upsetting news. I simply gave her comfort." Throwing me a look, he continues, "I know you haven't had the highest opinion of me lately, but I thought you knew me well enough to know I would never help someone cheat. Even if her boyfriend is a pompous bastard like JJ."

I shrug sheepishly. "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it…"

But he shakes his head. "Of course not, Yuuri," he responds definitively. Then he sighs and takes a big bite of rice.

After a beat of silence, I suddenly muster the nerve to tell him, "I'm glad you talked to me. That we, like, talked about things. Or whatever. Cleared the air. Being mad at someone really takes it out of you, you know? At some point you just have to do something or move on." I know I'm rambling, but words keep tumbling out of my mouth. "And- And I know I've been less than cooperative at the club, especially when it comes to you-"

He snorts. I continue.

"-but if you wanted to write an article, or whatever, you could. If you wanted."

My offer hangs suspended in the air. Victor brightens and says, "You know what, Yuuri, I would."

I slide off my bed for a moment to turn on a light. When I sit back down, our knees almost touch. Their presence ghosts my skin. Something else is there, too, something livelier and promises. Something that says not yet, but someday. Definitely someday.

I think the rest of the newspaper club is more relieved about our reconciliation than Victor and me. My eye still remains closely trained on Otabek, but the air feels lighter, the tension that once girded the atmosphere lifted. It's on the periphery of normal.

Victor and I both assist Minami when he interviews Ketty about her accomplishments as a pianist and a composer. After that, we go home and I'm okay. It's not perfect and I don't know if I could be categorized as _happy_ but my muscles don't constantly clench and I don't try to pull my hair out.

These things I think about as I drift asleep. The next morning, about a week after Victor's peace offering, I wake to an obnoxious beeping coming from my phone that isn't my alarm.

It's Victor, calling at 6:43 in the morning. I decide not to be annoyed, since it's only a few minutes before I usually get up, anyway.

"Hello?" I ask drearily. "Victor?"

"Hello, Yuuri, very sorry to wake you," he responds, sounding rushed. "I feel bad asking you this but I wouldn't if it wasn't an emergency. My car won't start."

"And you need a ride to school?" I ask. I sit up in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Not to be rude, but can't you take the bus?"

"It already left."

I yawn. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, Victor. I don't mind, really." I crawl out of bed and start to dress myself. "Text me your address and I'll be there in about thirty minutes. Is that okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Victor's quick to reply. I hang up and receive the address a minute later.

It's out of the way, on a road like so many in our small town with only a few aging houses and scraggly fields growing weeds and small bushes. I've never been there before, but don't have trouble finding it. When I get to his house, I find him pacing in the lawn in front of an old yellow doublewide, a scowling blonde boy on the steps behind him. Victor's car, a beat up silver jalopy I recognize from the few times he took me or Phichit home last fall, sits dormant in the driveway.

When he sees my car pull up, he stops pacing and starts to wave. The blonde boy- who I recognize as Yurio, his foster brother, stands up.

I roll down my window. "Good morning. Hop on in."

Victor smiles, obviously embarrassed. "Thank you so much Yuuri." He turns to look at Yurio. "Is it okay that you give my foster brother a ride, too? I forgot to mention it on the phone."

"Of course." They both climb in- Victor in the front, Yurio in the back- and I continue, "We'll get to school a little later than I normally do, but we should be on time."

Victor nods and stares out the window as the doublewide disappears behind us.

I clear my throat. "So what happened to your car?"

He shrugs. "I think the battery ran out last night but I don't have jumper cables, and Yakov already left for work. _Someone_ ," he glares at Yurio, "spent all night listening to the radio inside. Even though we have a radio inside."

Yurio rolls his eyes. "Whatever, there's no privacy in that house. How can I do anything when you're always doing pushups or stretching somewhere and Georgi's always stomping around bitching like a five year old?"

Victor sighs and I snicker. "Well, I can drop you both off later this afternoon and give your car a jump, if that's what you need," I offer as I stop at a red light. "It wouldn't be a problem."

Victor says, "That's not necessary," at the same time Yurio asks me, "Hey, aren't you the kid with the dead friend?"

I'm glad we're at a red light. Otherwise, I might've driven clear off the road. Victor turns around in shock.

"Yurio! What the hell was that?"

I shake my head and laugh feebly. "It's okay, Victor. He's not wrong."

But the comment still stirs up my stomach and it churns. Is that how people know me around school now? The best friend who that kid who died last year? It's cruel, both to myself and to his memory.

To be fair, my behavior since certainly didn't help my case.

We arrive at school a few minutes later, and because of the time, I have to park near the back of the student lot, further than I'm used to as I usually arrive about twenty minutes earlier than this. As I exit my car and pull my things out of my trunk, I'm almost run down by what seems like an intense and unexpected burst of air.

I recoil and huff. "Geez, what was _that_?"

Victor waves my comment away and tells Yurio goodbye, who starts his prolonged trudge to the school. "You didn't see? That was just Otabek."

I narrow my eyes. "Why did it feel like a tornado just flew by, then?"

Victor laughs. "Otabek likes to push the laws of physics when he rides his motorcycles. Typical."

I pause for a moment. "Wait… motorcycle? You're kidding."

"I'm not," he says, throwing me a strange glance. "He's had it for a few years, why?"

"He doesn't own a car?" I ask. Something vibrates at the bottom of my chest.

"I doubt he ever has. He loves that thing. You know that, don't you? You've gone here as long as I have and know him better."

I reply, lightheaded, "I always show up early, and I guess he always shows up late." A chuckle escapes my throat. The small noise proceeds to snowball into a full-fledge fit of hysteric laughter. "He doesn't own a car. He doesn't own a fucking car."

Victor raises an eyebrow, confused. I don't blame him. "Yuuri… are you alright?"

I struggle to breathe in between laughs. "Of course I am. Otabek doesn't own a car."

"Are you _sure_ you're okay?" he asks again, patting me on the back in concern. The touch sends electricity down my spine.

"I'm fine, Victor," I assure him, though I have to fight to get the words out. "Don't wait for me. Go ahead."

He reluctantly complies.

The laughing fit seems to be the alternative to crying. Tears sting my eyes as I continue to howl, receiving quite a few looks from the last students emerging from their cars, but I don't care. I keep howling. Eventually my howling laughter turns to howling crying as it sinks into my brain.

Otabek doesn't own a fucking car.

I'm back to square one.

 _a/n:_

 _I hope you guys enjoyed this! i know i posted a little late. wanted to get this one right._

 _next chapter ooooo boy. a lot happens. we see yurio, leo & guang-hong, a confrontation, and a special moment between yuuri and victor. _

_not sure if i'll be able to post the next chapter next monday because i'll be busy with graduation stuff. two weeks til i walk across the dankest stage of them all! but i'll for sure try to post the week after that._

 _please let me know what you think of the story so far, and any theories about phichit's killer. i would love to know and having support motivates me to write this._


	7. Floating

_LOCAL TEEN KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN AFTER FOOTBALL GAME. Monday, October 1, 2016._

 _Last Friday night, an unknown vehicle struck and killed an undisclosed local teenager before fleeing the scene of the accident. The teenager, who attended Thomas M. Fisher High School, was walking home from a football game when who police think was likely a drunk driver hit him on the street he lived and ran without reporting the incident._

 _The victim's neighbor found him last Sunday morning, and he was rushed to Harmony Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead that afternoon._

 _Police also believe that impact of the crash caused significant damage to the vehicle involved in the hit-and-run, and have posted an APB on vehicles that might fit this description._

 _However, the perpetrator is still unknown. If you have any information relating to this case, please contact HPD._

As I finish rereading the article, renewed pain coursing through my body, the door to the media lab opens and in walks Victor, followed closely by Yuro who has a triangular instrument case strapped to his back.

I smile tightly at the two. Victor nods in response and nudges Yurio on the back slightly towards me, a move not well-received. He grumbles something to his older foster brother and takes a step forward of his own volition.

"I'm not a fucking infant," he hisses at Victor, who just rolls his eyes as Yurio crosses his arms and looks to me.

I raise my eyebrows, not sure what to expect.

"I'm sorry about what I said yesterday," he mumbles. "You know, that shit about your dead friend. It was rude."

I almost laugh, taken aback. Yurio is… not what I expected. "You're okay. It just caught me off guard, that's all."

Yurio doesn't seem to know how to respond to this, so he just nods and walks away, over to a desk, where he slides the case carefully off his back and places it gently on the flat surface in front of him. With the press of a button, the latches fly open, revealing an old but well cared for violin.

He looks at the few of us watching him and says, "You want a picture with it, or what?"

Minako says, "Yuuri?"

I nod. "I'll get my camera out really quick. You two-" Minako and Victor. "Can handle the interview without me, right?"

Minako nods, then asks Yurio, "Can you play something for us? It could help the article."

Yurio nods. "It will probably sound like shit because I haven't warmed up." But then he puts the violin to his chin and plays anyway. I have trouble assembling my camera, as mindless as the task is, because of how talented he is. You expect to hear clarity and quality like that on professional recordings, not from a temperamental freshmen foster kid.

Before he stops, I snap a few shots of Yurio with the violin tucked close to him like an old friend, his eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration. Victor smiles in the background, beaming like a proud parent. Once he finishes playing the piece- a complicated but mellow song I don't recognize- I clear my throat.

"That was beautiful," I tell him breathlessly. "I think I got the shots I needed."

"Hmph," is his only response. "My A string was sharp."

While he turns the little nobs on the end of his violin that tighten or loosen strings, I nod to Minako. "I have to go. Is that okay?"

She waves me off. "Yeah, of course, Yuuri. Do what you have to do. See you tonight at the fundraiser, right?"

I resist the urge to smack my head because I almost forgot. But I should have enough time to make it. I'll have to let some of my homework slide, though.

"Definitely," I answer, packing up my things quickly. "See you Minako, Victor, Yurio."

Living in a small town means that you have limited options on specialty services, like tanning or something. Or, in our case, car repair.

A few years ago, we had two auto shops. Then one filed for bankruptcy, and the owner of the other passed away. People started to complain about driving their cars a town over to get them fixed, so a mechanically-inclined friend of mine dropped out of business school to reopen the second auto shop. Today, Leo and his husband, Guang-Hong, help run the shop and make a pretty good profit off of it.

Guang-Hong and I know each other from newspaper club my freshman year and his senior. I know he would help me.

I pull my car into the parking lot next to the garage. The old concrete building has a fresh coat of paint and a new sign that says _De La Iglesias' Repair_ in neon blue letters. A bell above the door jingles as I step inside. Guang-Hong, who manages most financial and customer service aspects of their business, runs a tight ship and the interior of the building is neat. Even the children's corner, made for kids who are stuck at the shop while their parents negotiate prices, looks tidy.

I ring a silver bell at the service desk labelled _Ring for assistance_. Right below it, taped cleanly with clear duct tape, a sign reads _Full-time help wanted! Must have mechanic experience and people skills. Ask for manager._

Guang-Hong comes running through the door like he's running from a fire. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we're a little short-staffed right now."

I nod and point to the paper. "I saw your sign."

Guang-Hong cracks a smile as he slides behind the fancy computer and types a few keys. "Of course. Hi, Yuuri! What can I do for you today?"

I pull out a small notepad and pencil. "I was wondering if you could do me a small favor and maybe give me the name of someone who maybe had their car repaired here a few months ago."

Guang-Hong frowns. "For good or for evil?" he asks. "Before you respond, breaking the law is always evil."

I laugh. "It's for good. Don't worry. I'm not- I wouldn't do anything bad. Or mean. Or anything."

He cracks a smile but there's suspicion and curiosity behind it. "Well, alright, but just this once, okay? And don't tell Leo. He gets sensitive about this kind of thing."

I nod thankfully. "Of course."

He types a few things into his computer and looks up at me. "So what do you want to know?"

I tear a piece of paper out of the notepad and hand it to Guang-Hong. "Can you give me the names of anyone who had their car repaired for impact damage from these dates?"

He inspects the paper closely, types something, then peers at me. "What is this for, Yuuri?"

I shrug. "I doesn't matter."

He raises his eyebrows quickly and shakes his head as he bends over slightly to look closer at the monitor. "Okay then." After a few moments more spent hunched, scribbling names down on a piece of paper, he straightens and hands it to me. "Here you go. Ten names. Is that what you wanted?"

I smile, pocketing the paper. It crinkles in my pocket next to my phone. "You don't know how much this means to me, really, Guang-Hong. I appreciate it."

"Anything for an old friend. Promise you'll take care of yourself, doing whatever you're doing?"

I nod and the door Guang-Hong entered from opens, gentler this time. Leo emerges soaked with grease and sweat, rubbing his face with a cloth.

He smiles when he sees me. "Oh, hi, Yuuri," he says as he walks over to Guang-Hong behind the counter. He moves to kiss his husband on the head, but Guang-Hong ducks out of it, probably for fear of the dirt. "What brings you here?"

I shrug. "Just saying hi, really. I wanted to check on the price of an oil change."

"Hey, if you need one, it's on us," he offers. "I never repaid you for taking our wedding photos last summer. Seriously, what you and Phichit did was invaluable."

Guang-Hong elbows Leo in the stomach and shoots him a look. This irks me.

"You can mention him in front of me you know," I say, a little angrier than warranted in the situation. I'm tired of people walking on eggshells around me, like one false word and I'll be on the ground in tears. "I'm not an invalid."

Suddenly I feel like Yuri Plisetsky, embarrassed and whining earlier today. More angry at himself.

Instead of abject apology, Guang-Hong just shakes his head and sighs. "I'm sorry, Yuuri. There's nothing to be ashamed of if you're still sad. It's okay."

He says _sad_ so simple like I lost a contest or left a twenty dollar bill on the bus. Sad doesn't fit, exactly. Maybe _mourning._ Or _fixating_. It's shameful because it's pathetic.

"I promise I'm alright," I insist. "I've been fine for months."

Leo keeps looking from my face to Guang-Hong's like he's confused. Guang-Hong squeezes one of his hands, the only clean part of his body.

"You couldn't say his name earlier," Guang-Hong points out. "You said, 'I'm not-' but then stopped. Were you about to say 'I'm not Phichit'?"

I shake my head. "No. I just misspoke."

"Then say his name. Say Phichit."

I don't respond. My hands wring together. It's cold.

Then he just sighs. "It was good to see you, Yuuri. I'm sure you have a lot of homework to do."

His lack of verbal acknowledgement makes me feel bad for taking out my frustrations on another person with my best interests at heart. It's a _told-you-so_ if I ever heard one, but I'm tired of every conversation about this ending sourly so I clear my throat and try to make things right. "Hey, sorry for being so- you know. It's just been hard these last few months. I just need more time to take it in, I think. It's a little humiliating, having everyone know that."

I have never said that aloud before, and I think Leo and Guang-Hong catch on.

"You can come to us if you ever need anything, or just to talk," Leo says, entering the conversation for the first time. "It won't leave this building."

I thank them for the offer-though not one I'll likely take- and try to smile. Leo and Guang-Hong only ever mean well, even if they do like to meddle.

"Sorry I'm late."

"It's only ten minutes." Yuuko smiles and hands me an apron and sets a bucket filed with soapy water and a dingy rag by my feet. "Better late than never, right? Why don't you shadow-" Her eyes scan the restaurant, a popular pizza joint understandably crowded on a Friday night. Her eyes fall on a corner booth, where a familiar figure bends over, wiping crumbs off the table. "Victor? That's okay, right?"

I nod and tie the apron around my waist. "Of course. We take the tips, right?"

"Mm-hm. If you get any, put it here," she explains, standing on her toes and struggling to reach a jar from a high shelf. Already a few bills sit on the bottom, along with a handful of coins. "Got it. The money goes in the jar. That's pretty much it. Victor can tell you the rest."

I thank her and grab my bucket. Victor notices me walking over and stands up, smiling.

He waves with a plastic glove-covered hand, the one not holding a wet rag. "Hi, Yuuri. You made it."

I smile warmly. I've made my peace with Victor. I guess we could be considered friends, even. "I wouldn't miss this," I joke. "What are we doing?"

Victor explains that we're bussing, essentially. Bringing used dishes to the kitchen, wiping down tables- stuff like that.

"Sounds easy enough," I remark. "I think I can wipe tables."

Apparently, though, I can't. The second I put the cloth to the surface, Victor criticises my technique.

"You aren't putting enough back into it, Yuuri," he states, a hand to his hip. "And you are spilling all the crumbs on the floor. Here. Let me show you."

My face heats up a little as he places a gloved hand over mine and shows me how to clean the table while corralling the crumbs into one corner, then the trash can. His front presses into my back intimately, igniting a warmth in my stomach I thought I left behind months ago.

Uh oh.

Victor finishes his demonstration and pulls away. I clear my throat, sure my face betrays my emotions.

"You're uh…" I cough and avert my eyes. Victor looks amused. The thought crosses my mind for a moment that he knew exactly what he was doing, but I quickly dismiss the notion based solely on how incredulous it is. "You're good at that. How are you so good at that?"

Victor laughs. "Ah, yes. My one talent: washing tables. How far I will go."

I shake my head, clearing my mind of bothersome thoughts. "No, you forgot football. You did get that scholarship, after all."

Victor eyes me curiously. "How could I forget? That's two talents I can apply in the real world."

I chuckle and try to use Victor method to clean the next table.

"To answer your question," he continues, "I work here."

"Oh." I don't know why I'm surprised. "I wasn't really serious when I asked that. It was a joke." I wipe the table. Crumbs fall on the floor anyway, but if Victor sees he doesn't comment. "I didn't know you had a job."

Victor shrugs easily. "I needed one. I started work here." His eyes look up. "Since November, about."

I don't press him for details. "I think I remember something about that in a meeting. You set this whole thing up, didn't you? Us fundraising here and stuff."

He nods and moves to the next table, stacking the used dishes on top of each other. "You're lucky you're stuck with me tonight, Yuuri," he says, balancing the plates on his hands and very nearly dropping them, "I'm a professional."

I laugh. "I can see that. Lucky me."

We fall into easy conversation as we move about the restaurant and I remember why I liked Victor in the first place. In addition to his looks, I never left a conversation with him feeling worse than I did before. I always felt better after speaking with him; lighter. We had a rough patch but tonight is no exception.

That warm feeling pools in my stomach again. I don't fight it.

Around an hour before the fundraiser ends, a group of boys wander into the pizza joint that look vaguely familiar. Upon closer inspection, I realize why with a groan.

Victor notices this and stands up straighter. "What's the matter?"

I discretely point over to the corner booth where the group sits. "Look, over there. "

Victor shakes his head. "So what?"

I grab his arm and tell him softly, "What do you mean _so?_ JJ and Michele lived to torture me! If they see me here they will… I don't know, slash my tires or something!"

Victor rolls his eyes. "Yuuri, that's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

I scoff. "Coming from the guy who punched through a panel of glass because his girlfriend broke up with him."

Victor looks a little affronted for a second but shrugs it off. "Touche. But they are not here to antagonize you. They want to eat, same as everybody else."

He dumps the plates into a nearby black container. I shoot him a skeptical look, but do my best to ignore them for the next few minutes. Eventually they finish eating and we have to remove their dishes.

I cautiously walk over to the table, Victor on my tail, and clear my throat. "Can I take that for you?"

Michele snorts and shoves his dishes towards me. JJ is distinctly more civil and just nods, but I don't trust him from experience. The other two boys- sophomores, maybe, that I recognize but can't name- barely acknowledge us. We collect their used plates without a hitch, and I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that's it and I avoided any major aggressions.

Then Victor and I split up to wipe separate tables about twenty minutes before the fundraiser's end. Victor cleans a booth a few tables away from me and I take the one next to JJ and Michele. I make the mistake of setting down the bucket of water too close to their booth, and while I lean over to reach the far end of the table, I hear a crash and a splash and dirty soap water starts to soak through the bottom half of my jeans.

I stand back up to catch Michele's cruel smile and guilty foot retract back under his table. I know he kicked it (that's a mystery I don't have to work to solve) but I'm in no mood these days for confrontation. I pick the bucket back up, face red, and almost head to the mop closet to find towels to clean up the mess, but suddenly Victor's there and blocks my path.

He sends me a look, an eyebrow drawn up, like, _You're going to let him do that to you?_

"It isn't worth it, Victor," I tell him quietly as he places a grounding hand on my shoulder, my eyes on the ground. Michele snickers behind us. "Just let it go."

Victor's face hardens and he shakes his head, looking past me. "Hey, you- Crispino. Why the hell did you do that?"

My face burns even worse than before and I force myself to turn around. No use in trying to leave anymore.

Crispino stops mid-cackle and he scowls. "What's it to you, Victor?" He glances at Victor's hand still on my shoulder and snorts. "Figures you'd side with the charity case over your own brothers. Again."

It's an accusation I don't totally understand. His tablemates watch with interested but not concerned eyes. JJ rolls his eyes at the word "brothers".

Victor almost snarls. "We were never-!"

A hush falls over the restaurant. People pause to observe the spectacle.

Michele stands up defensively. "You-!"

"Oh, shut the hell up, Michele," JJ says, pulling him back down. "You were a dick, just apologise."

Michele turns to him, indignant, but JJ holds his gaze, unwavering. Then Michele huffs and looks at me.

"Sorry, he grumbles and I nod, mortified at all the attention. Then he turns to JJ and mutters, "Happy?"

Victor relaxes a bit and he squeezes my arm. "Let's go get some towels to clean the water up."

I smile thankfully. "Yeah, okay."

Once we soap up the mess and throw the towels in a bin, JJ, Michele and the two sophomores are leaving. As they walk past us out the door, I hear Michele, who's still sulking, mutter something about "since fucking Phichit."

My eyebrows shoot straight up at this and I turn to Victor to see if he heard it too, but he shows no reaction. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this but Michele Crispino's name was on the list that Guang-Hong gave me earlier this afternoon.

We still have about ten minutes left before the end of the fundraiser, so we return to the bucket to fill it back up and continue the task at hand.

But Yuuko stops us before we can. "You're still soaking wet, Yuuri. And Victor, you still look like you want to throttle something. Just go home, you two. Change. Calm down. See you Monday, alright?"

I almost protest but feel suddenly very exhausted. "Okay, Yuuko. Thanks."

Victor nods.

We turn in our aprons and walk outside together, stopping at our cars, which are parked only a few spots away from each other.

He opens the door to his car, and I fumble for my keys, then he stops.

"Yuuri," he calls out and I turn. "Want to go get something to eat?"

I look down at my jeans. "I'm kinda pretty wet." Then I realize what I just said. "Not like that, I mean-"

Victor stills has that effect on me. It's been bothering me all night.

He waves my words away. "I have a pair of sweatpants in my car. Will you?"

I consider my options. Go home and eat leftovers while watching bad nighttime TV, or spend a few hours alone with the boy I loved for who knows how long.

I _am_ hungry.

"Hopefully the pants fit," I say finally. "Where were you thinking of going?"

Chocolate ice cream drips from the cone and runs down my hand and I laugh. "Oops."

Victor smiles warmly and takes a bite of his own vanilla. "It's good, right?"

I nod. "Very. You know, I've wanted to try this place for a little while now, but never got the chance." I lick my cone. "Until now."

Victor chuckles. We sit at the front of the small ice cream shop on adjacent tall stools that face a window looking out on the small downtown area. It's a nice view. Peaceful. More vacant than usual on a Friday night.

"I've visited a few times before now," he says, staring out the window. "Mostly with Yurio. He likes to drag me places."

"Yurio," I echo quietly, then laugh. "He still hates being called that, doesn't he?"

Victor glances at me for a second and smirks loosely. Then he turns back to stare out the window. A streetlamp across from us flickers in a rhythm and he taps his fingers along. "More than anything. I'm sure he still resents you a small amount for the nickname." He snorts. "Even Yakov and Georgi call him that now."

"You're welcome," I joke.

He nods, smiling and turns back to that streetlight, in and out. In and out. Now he uses his spoon to tap the rhythm and I soon find my own hand playing along. The conversation has reached the brink of what we're comfortable with and what we haven't been able to say. But, like my anger and Otabek and Victor himself, it boils over. Things never stay hidden for long. Skeletons can only stay in the closet for so long before they start to smell.

I clear my throat and his head turns slightly towards me.

"We were friends, weren't we?" I ask. The ice cream drips down my hand.

His spoon stops tapping and his eyebrows raise. "Of course we were. I would think we still were, actually."

I sigh and look down. "I think we both know things changed."

After a second, Victor nods acutely. He stares at the streetlamp again and the tapping resumes. "So much has changed since then."

I purse my lips. "Right. I just wanted to know-" I swallow and breathe deeply. "It's just after everything happened, I could've really used a friend. But I was alone. And I wanted to know why. Why we stopped being friends, I mean."

I cringe at my awkward word choice and pray my message got through.

Victor sighs. "Well, I take the blame for that. You came back to school after the accident so dazed and out of it that Yakov advised me to let you be for a while." He looks down. "By the time you looked better, I suppose the damage had been done. It would have felt fake and forced to try and warm back up to you. Besides, by that time, you weren't exactly taking applications."

I almost laugh. "Fair enough." I pause and add, "I would've taken you back earlier, you know. But I thought that you ditched me because you didn't want to deal with all of my baggage."

Victor looks thoughtly. "It didn't happen in a vacuum, Yuuri. It hurt everyone else too." He shrugs. "Maybe we would've been a little more normal now if we had just dealt with our baggage together."

I consider this. Perhaps I have been acting selfish lately.

"Maybe. Then again, it's never too late to start over." I offer him my hand. "Yuuri Katsuki. Pleasure to meet you."

He receives it. His palm is warm and soft and I'm afraid mine feels sticky. "The pleasure is mine." Laughing, he lets go of my hand and scoops the last spoon of ice cream out of the paper cup and pops it in his mouth. After a second his eyes go wide and his mouth opens. "Oh, shit, brain freeze. Ouch! No!"

I laugh. It echos through the empty ice cream shop. "Here, stop, stop!" I take his thumb. "Put your thumb to the roof of your mouth. Works everytime."

When he doesn't comply, I pop his thumb into his mouth myself. The gesture feels weird and intimate but I don't immediately retract my hand from his. His features soften and I let my hand go.

"Better?" I ask. I can feel his breath on my cheeks. We've never been this close before.

He looks me in the eyes and my heart beats painfully loud in my chest. I am about to spare myself the heartbreak when he suddenly leans in and captures my lips in his.

I barely have time to register the surprise when he pulls away, his face redder than I've ever seen it.

His eyes dart back and forth in time with the flickering street lamp across the street. "Sorry. Do you think anyone saw that?"

I snap out of the daze and reply. "No, I- you're gay?" 

He sighs and looks down. "Well- yes."

My lips still tingle as I take it all in. The gears in my head turn through every interaction I've ever had with Victor, everything I've ever known about him. My head spins. "So when you said that you broke up with your 'significant other', you meant your boyfriend? But you said it was your girlfriend."

Victor shrugs a shoulder. "Well, I believe you drew that conclusion yourself, but it's true. He wanted to go public, I did not."

"Oh," I say, disappointed.

"Yes."

"You're gay."

"Correct."

"That's great!"

"That's relative." Victor shoots me an amused look. "It seems our definitions of 'great' differ. Do you know what happens to gay kids in the foster system? Yakov could kick me out, send me to a group home where I'd be tormented."

I frown. "That's not what I meant. But you're gay and you kissed me and it's great because I'm gay and I really like you and-"

Victor kisses me again to shut me up, longer this time. When he pulls back, we laugh.

"I know," he said, the beginnings of a smile on his face. "You weren't as careful as you thought back in the fall." Then he gets more serious. "I like you, Yuuri, I really do. But I'm not ready to be out yet. Alright?"

I nod, still amazed that Victor kissed me. Twice in one night. "Okay," I breathe, unable to fight the big dumb grin off my face.

He grins back and then I'm floating, happier than I've been in months.

 _a/n:_

 _Ahhhhh I'm so sorry for being MIA these last few weeks! I'm promise I'm not abandoning this story. Here's an extra-long chapter to make up for it. Things have been really busy around here. I'm on summer vacation rn, but the second I was free, I got really sick. Then, it was time for graduation and that involved several days of cleaning and preparing for a week long event that left me with no substantial free time whatsoever. i know you don't really want to hear excuses, but just know that i still think about this story a lot and i'm still writing it as often as i can. updates might slow down because i'm getting ready to move out, but i will upload at least once a month, i promise._

 _next chapter, we see JJ again (who is kinda my fave btw), a flashback, a notebook, and Sara Crispino (another fave. they're all my faves)._

 _as always, you can follow me on tumblr antspaul or on the goddess of percabeth._

 _love you guys!_


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